LIBRARY

University of

California

Irvine

3

a

7T

MAINE DE BIRAN.

From Levy-Bruhl's History of Modern Philosophy in France.— Courtesy of the Open Court
Publishing Company.

THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE

CORNELL STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY
No. 5

MAINE DE BIRAN'S

PHILOSOPHY OF WILL

BY

NATHAN E. TRUMAN, A.M., PH.D.

FORMERLY FELLOW IN THE SAGE SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY

Kite ¥ork
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1904

PREFACE.

No special account of Maine de Biran's philosophy has before
appeared in English, and the sources are rendered somewhat dif-
ficult by the author's highly involved style. It has seemed, there-
fore, that a somewhat extended exposition of his work may prove
useful. In the composition of this monograph my object has been
two-fold : to give a statement of Biran's system, and to show his
exact position in the history of speculative thought. As a result
of careful investigation, I have found it necessary to call attention
to the unitary character of the system, which, as a matter of fact,
centers around the single idea — will. This conclusion is, of
course, opposed to the view of Naville, who in his introduction
to the (Euvres inedites divides Biran's work into three sharply
distinguished periods. I am convinced, however, that this divi-
sion rests on insufficient grounds. For in the idea of activity is
to be found the keynote of the entire philosophy. This idea is
clearly evident in the writings assigned by Naville to the earlier
and the later periods, as well as in the more important works that
were written during the intervening years.

On the whole, it may seem surprising that I have not emphasized
more strongly the importance of Biran's philosophy. It is per-
haps unusual in a work of this kind to minimize the significance
of the subject. However that may be, I have to confess that the
motive which led me to begin my study, the expectation of find-
ing elements of permanent value in Biran's philosophy based on
frequent references to him as ' the French Kant,' has scarcely
been realized by my subsequent investigation. Even with the
most sympathetic interpretation, Biran cannot be placed among
philosophers of the first rank. Kant's great significance does
not consist merely in his emphasis on the activity of mind against
the empiricists, but rather in the fact that he shows that the
activity in which the nature of mind is expressed is universal and
objective in character. Biran, however, remains at the point of

iii

IV

view of empiricism ; for his epistemology is developed from the sub-
jective psychological fact of will, and continues relative to the end.
The universal and necessary character of causality is left unex-
plained. His psychology aims at being introspective and factual,
but is lost in a bewildering mass of abstractions. * I have shown
that he stands for a position which is neither a third view correla-
tive with empiricism and rationalism nor a synthesis of these two
recognized systems, but rather an extension of the former — a
development of the Locke-Condillac school, yet a development
that is still on the same epistemological plane.

Finally it should be noted that my conclusions in regard to
Biran's relation to subsequent philosophical positions refer exclu-
sively to the logical connection of his ideas, and not to his indirect
influence, which was certainly very great, but which I have made
no attempt to estimate. With this reservation, my results indicate
that his effect on later thought, e. g., on that of Cousin or of
Renouvier, was not extensive.

In working out this subject I have received most valuable ad-
vice and suggestions from Professor J. E. Creighton, under whom
I had been studying during the time devoted to the composition
of the monograph, and from Professor Ernest Albee, who very
kindly read my manuscript at an early stage.

N. E. T.
BAINBRIDGE, N. Y.

CONTENTS.

SECTION PAGE.

I. LIFE AND WORKS I

II. OBJECTIONS TO NAVILLE'S VIEW OF BIRAN'S DE-
VELOPMENT 3

III. BIRAN'S RELATION TO EARLIER THINKERS : LOCKE,

CONDILLAC, KANT, AND REID 6

IV. PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY 22

V. DEDUCTION OF THE CATEGORIES 30

VI. DIVISIONS OF THE PSYCHOLOGY 41

VII. AFFECTIVE SYSTEM 44

VIII. SENSITIVE SYSTEM 47

IX. PERCEPTIVE SYSTEM 51

X. REFLECTIVE SYSTEM 59

XI. COMPARISON OF BIRAN'S Psychologic WITH CONDIL-

LAC'S Traite des sensations 69

XII. ETHICS AND ^ESTHETICS 72

XIII. RELIGION 78

XIV. BIRAN'S RELATION TO SUBSEQUENT THINKERS : COUSIN,

COMTE, RENOUVIER, AND FOUILLEE 81

BIBLIOGRAPHY 91

INDEX 93

SECTION I.

LIFE AND WORKS.

Maine de Biran was regarded by Cousin as " the first French
metaphysician of our time." l Two reasons are sufficient to ex-
plain why this estimate was not made earlier or more generally
accepted. Biran was not, like his great contemporary Kant, a
teacher of philosophy. His career, as far as it was public, was
almost entirely in the field of politics. To the men of his time
he was better known as a statesman than as a philosopher. But
the most important cause which contributed to his failure to gain
early recognition was the fact that he published very little work.
He was never quite satisfied with the form in which he had ex-
pressed his thought. The result was that his principal writings
were left unfinished. Adequate material for estimating the value
of his system was provided only by posthumous editions of his
works.

The life of Biran was uneventful. He was born November
29, 1766, and died July 20, 1824. His father was a physician
of the town of Bergerac, in the southwestern part of France.
He was educated in the neighboring town of Perigueux, where
he studied Condillac's philosophy under the direction of the
doctrinaires. In 1785 he became a life-guardsman, but early in
October of that year was wounded in the arm. He then went
to Grateloup and remained there during the Reign of Terror.
Subsequently he held several administrative offices in the prov-
ince of Dordogne. But in 1 809 he was chosen a member of the
legislative assembly ; and after 1812 he established his residence
permanently at Paris. He was a member of the commission
which took advantage of the reverse that Napoleon had sus-
tained in Russia to demand guarantees of the peace of Europe
and the liberties of the French citizens. After the Restoration,
Biran was a member of the Chamber of Deputies until his death,

1 Maine de Biran, (Ettvres Philosophiques, Vol. I, p. xi.
I

2 MAINE DE BIRAN S PHILOSOPHY

except in the single session 1817. He voted at first with the
liberals, but afterwards with their opponents. The change was
due not to inconsistency, but to a desire to support the royal
power which was in his opinion the only safeguard against
anarchy or despotism.

Biran's first philosophical work was the Influence de T habitude,
which, in 1802, won for him the prize offered by the Institute of
France. Three years later he received another prize from the
same source, for his Decomposition de la pensec. In 1 807 he re-
ceived special mention by the Berlin Academy for his Memoire
sur r aperception interne immediate. Finally, in 181 1, he received
the prize from the academy of Copenhagen for his Memoire sur
les rapports du physique ct du moral de I 'hommc. The first essay,
together with an anonymous Examen des legons de pJiilosophie de
Laromiguiere in 1817, and Une exposition de la doctrine de Leib-
nitz in 1819,' were the principal works which he gave to the
public during his life. But to appreciate the system as a whole,
the Essai sur les fondcments de la psychologie and the Nouveaux
essais d' antliropologie , which were first edited by E. Naville in
1859, are indispensable. The first may be called Biran's master-
piece. This work, which was begun in 1 8 1 1 , was incomplete
when Biran went to Paris and was developed at his leisure during
several succeeding years. In the Introduction, the author says
he intended to unite the three prize essays into a work more sys-
tematic and more carefully elaborated than the writings which he
had presented to the various societies. He was led to adopt this
plan from the fact that the three essays were the same in idea, dif-
fering only in the degree of development and in the form in which
the idea was expressed.2 The Nouveaux essais d' antJiropologie
(1823-24) is a fragment ; but is very important, since it embodies
the final expression of the author's philosophy of religion. This
work reproduces many of the ideas in the Psychologie, and thus
clearly shows the internal connection in all Biran's philosophy.

1 In the Biographie Universelle,Vo\. 23.

2 Cf. CEuvres inedites, publiees par Naville, Vol. I, pp. 34-35.

SECTION II.

OBJECTIONS TO NAVILLE'S VIEW OF BIRAN'S DEVELOPMENT.
At the outset it should be said that under the title, " Philo-
sophy of Will," I do not limit myself either to the period or
to the characteristics of Maine de Biran's work, which that name
might suggest to one who was familiar with Naville's exposition.
In the Nouveaux essais there is a classification of the observed
facts of human nature, which Naville takes as a key to three suc-
cessive stages in the thought of the philosopher. Biran finds an
animal life that is characterized by impressions, appetites, and
movements, of physiological origin, and subject to the law of.
necessity ; a human life resulting from the appearance of free will
and self-consciousness ; and a life of the spirit which begins when
the soul frees itself from the rule of the lower tendencies and turns
to God, there to find repose. On the analogy of this classifica-
tion, which is taken to indicate Biran's development, Naville has
described the system under three divisions : — a stage (i 794-1 804)
in which Biran is influenced by the work of Condillac and agrees
with Cabanis and de Tracy in regarding sense impressions as the
origin of thought; a philosophy of will (1804-1818) when Biran
develops with all its consequences the fact of the activity of
mind ; and finally (1818-1824) a philosophy of religion.1 Favre
agrees with Naville on this point. " Maine de Biran passed from
the sensationalism of Condillac to a doctrine based on the self,
and finally reached a third phase in which he gave the self a sup-
port : God." 2 Although Naville does not regard these divisions
as absolute, since he recognizes that the first period contained in
germ the principles which became explicit in the second period,
and that early in the development of the philosophy of will there
were tendencies apparent which indicated the mystical character
of Biran's later thought ; yet so much importance is attached to
the distinctions that they determine the form of the exposition.

1 Op. cit., I, pp. v-viii.

2 Essai sur la metaphysique et la morale de Maine de Biran, p. 6.

3

4 MAINE DE BIRAN S PHILOSOPHY

While admitting the practical 'convenience of this division, I
think that it conveys an erroneous impression of the relations of
the several parts of Biran's work. In the principal essay of the
first period (1794—1804), the Influence de I' habitude, we already
find the idea really fundamental to Biran's philosophy. The
significance of the consciousness of effort and of will is here
clearly stated. Only by a voluntary movement which meets a
resistance, that is, by an effort which is a relation between a sub-
ject and a limit, do we gain a basis for consciousness of self and
knowledge of the external world. A single passage will show
how far Biran was removed from the philosophy of Condillac
which Naville makes the dominant element in the first period.

" Effort necessarily carries with it the perception of a relation
between the being which moves, or which wills to move, and
some object which is opposed to the movement. Without a sub-
ject or a will that determines the movement, and without a term
which resists, there is no effort. And without effort there is no
knowledge or perception of any kind." *

In view of this and similar passages, we may regard the first
period not so much as a distinct stage in the thought of the phil-
osopher as an incomplete expression of the one idea of conscious
activity which came to clear light in the second period. The
doctrines which Naville takes as characteristic of the first stage
were not the results of Biran's own thought, but rather the in-
heritance which he received from the school of Condillac. They
were the subject matter, not the product, of his early philosophi-
cal activity.

Merten notes the fact that the notion of effort appears in the
first pages of the essay on habit ; but he says : " It is easy to see
that it is only a question here of effort conceived as the correla-
tive term of the impression." 2 But if " impression " is taken to
mean an effect produced on the organism by something entirely
external and foreign to the organism, we find that effort is not
always correlated with impression even in the essay on habit.
For example, Biran says : " We cannot doubt that the educa-

1 (Euvres philosophiques, Vol. I, p. 27.

2 Etude critique sur Maine de Biran, p. 9.

OBJECTIONS TO NAVILLE's VIEW 5

tion of what are usually considered merely as the sense organs
begins only by the development of their individual or associated
activity."1 It will be noticed that Biran says 'education,' not
' existence ' : the organism is here regarded as susceptible to im-
pression prior to any experience of effort. If, on the other hand,
by impression is meant the consciousness that the will meets a
resistance, effort is correlated with impression not only in Biran's
earlier, but also in his later, work. Similarly, the distinction of
the third from the second period is due to a change in the sphere
of application, rather than in the essential character of the prin-
ciple. In the philosophy of will the principle is applied to the
individual. In the philosophy of religion as far as it is a self-con-
sistent system, the principle of conscious activity is considered
also in extra-individual relations. At the beginning, Biran was
exclusively interested in a psychological account of mind, and
only at a later date did he take up the questions concerning
man's wider relations to society and the world.2 Even at this
later period these more fundamental problems never received
adequate treatment. But this point will be worked out in more
detail after we have given a general statement of his system.

Accordingly, in the treatment of Biran's philosophy of will, we
shall not limit the consideration to the period indicated by Naville's
division (1804-1818), but shall devote some attention to the
earlier writings and also to the later development of the philos-
ophy. It will, of course, remain true, however, that our study
will have an especial reference to the second period, since it is
here that Biran's ideas are most clearly stated, and that his views
have most significance for the history of philosophy. This is the
period of his most systematic and extended work, the Essai sur
les fondements de la psychologic.

1 CEuvres philosophiques, I, p. 99.

2 Gabriel Tarde has recently pointed to this individualistic feature. Maine de Biran
found that the " experiences of touch, sight, and hearing, in which it (the child i felt
itself at once subject and object, stood out in high relief from the ordinary impressions
of touch acting upon foreign substances, and from the usual impressions of sight and
hearing. . . . But what Maine de Biran did not see is this : That stranger still and
standing out yet more sharply on the background of our external perceptions, is our
perceptions of other people." Interpsychology. International Quarterly, Vol. VII,
No. I, p. 62.

SECTION III.

BIRAN'S RELATION TO EARLIER THINKERS : LOCKE, CONDILLAC,
KANT, AND REID.

Before considering Maine de Biran's philosophy in detail, it is
well briefly to review the work of his direct predecessors in
reference to the special points in which their opinions are related
to the principle which he makes ultimate. This reference will
show the nature of the philosophical thought which was domi-
nant in France in his time, and also the specific manner in
which he reacted against the current sensationalism ; it will
enable us to estimate his position at the beginning of his career,
and also to determine the extent of his development. Comparison
with the historical environment will lend distinctness to his lead-
ing ideas and will make it possible to determine more exactly the
significance of their application in his system. With this end in
view we shall attempt to trace the idea of the activity of the self
as it is found in the work of Locke and of Condillac. But in
this connection the treatment can be no more than a mere outline ;
and naturally cannot include even the mention of many impor-
tant elements in the views of these philosophers.

At this point we may notice a definition of sensationalism. 1
Cousin, who found it congenial and advantageous 2 to call himself
a disciple of Biran, brought the name into use. With him the
term designated the least developed of the four common philo-
sophical positions. The three types of thought correlative with
it were idealism, skepticism, and mysticism.3 He employed it to
characterize the school of Condillac. But in a wider sense it has
been applied to various thinkers, sometimes to denote a material-
istic metaphysics, at other times an empirical epistemology, or
finally a hedonistic ethics. Especially in the second of these
senses the term was applied to the views of Condillac and in a

1 Cf. Beaulavon's definition in La grande encyclopedic.

2 Picavet, article Biran in ibid.

*Cf. Cousin's History of Modern Philosophy (translated by O. W. Wight), Vol.
II, Lecture IV.

6

BIRAN'S RELATION TO EARLIER THINKERS 7

lesser degree to those of Locke. The epistemological aspect of
these systems is important in relation to Biran.

Locke could accept without hesitation the empirical dictum,
Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit iu sensu. But a care-
ful consideration of his account of experience reveals the pres-
ence of self-activity in his theory of knowledge. All the materi-
als of knowledge and reason come from experience. This
experience, however, includes the observation not only of " ex-
ternal sensible objects" but of the "internal operations of our
minds." * This "perception of the operations of our own mind
within us," the second " fountain from which experience furnish-
eth the understanding with ideas," is named specifically Reflection,
and " though it is not sense as having nothing to do with external
objects, yet it is very like it (sense) and might properly enough
be called internal sense." 2 It is evident that, for Locke, the
material derived from reflection has at least equal value with the
products of sensation. The mind " observes its own actions . . .
and takes from thence other ideas which are as capable to be the
objects of its contemplation as any of those it received from foreign
things." From reflection we derive the idea of perception and
of will. "The power of thinking is called the understanding,
and the power of volition is called the will." 3 Besides these
simple ideas and their various modes there are other ideas that
may be derived from reflection, e. g., power. We observe " in
ourselves that we can at pleasure move several parts of our bodies
that were at rest." * Power is classified as active and passive.
While ideas of both active and passive power are derived from
our experience of the external world, " our senses do not afford
us so clear and distinct an idea of active power, as we have from
reflection on the operations of our minds." 5

In comparing Locke with Biran, it is very important to notice
his conception of will. In the chapter on power, he makes will
and understanding examples of power. In regard to the first he

1£ssay Concerning Human Understanding, II, Ch. I, § 2.
*Ibid., II, Ch. I, §4.
*Ibid., II, Ch. VI.
*Ibid., II, Ch. VII, §8.
5 Ibid., II, Ch. XXI, §4.

8 MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

says : " We find in ourselves a power to begin or to forbear, con-
tinue or end several actions of our minds and motions of our
bodies, barely by a thought or preference of the mind ordering,
or, as it were, commanding the doing or not doing such or such
a particular action. This power which the mind has thus to
order the consideration of any idea, or ... the motion of any
part of the body ... in any particular instance is what we call
will." l These powers of mind, which are sometimes called
faculties, should not be supposed " to stand for some real beings
in the soul that performed those actions." 2 The nature of the
will is also evident from the treatment of the question of freedom.
The agent is at liberty to follow the preference of his mind ; but
to ask if the will has freedom is to ask if one power has another
power." 3 Volition " is an act of the mind directing its thought
to the production of any action, and thereby exerting its power to
produce it," 4 while "freedom consists in the dependence of the
existence . . . of any action upon our volition of it." 5

The secondary place which the will holds in Locke's scheme is
further shown by a consideration of his view of spirit. Finite
spirit is one of the three varieties of substance, yet in the mental
operations of thinking, reasoning, fearing, etc., which we refer to
a spiritual substrate " we have as clear a notion of the substance
of spirit as we have of body." In the section on the intuitive
knowledge of our own existence, Locke is so far from making
will the core of being that he does not even mention it as one of
the forms of consciousness in which we find direct and indisput-
able evidence of existence, although he would no doubt be will-
ing to include it as coordinate with the " I think, I reason, I feel
pleasure and pain " and " I doubt." 7 Finally, it is not the will
that makes the self as in Biran. " Nothing but consciousness can
unite remote existences into the same person : the identity of sub-

1 Op. fit., II, Ch. XXI, § 5.

2 Ibid., II, Ch. XXI, § 6.
*Ibid., II, Ch. XXI, § 16.
*Ibid., II, Ch. XXI, § 28.
5 Ibid., II, Ch. XXI, § 27.
« Ibid., II, Ch. XXIII, § 5.
7 Ibid., IV, Ch. IX, § 3.

BIRAN S RELATION TO EARLIER THINKERS 9

stance will not do it ; for whatever substance there is, however
framed, without consciousness there is no person."

In the system of Condillac, there is presented a form of empiri-
cism which differs in many respects from that of Locke and which
is especially important in the present connection. The Traite des
sensations appeared in 1754. It is the aim of the author to show
that all knowledge is derived from sensation. By means of sen-
sations the soul is modified and all its knowledge and faculities
are developed. The problem here is not so much the nature of
the mind as the character and origin of mental operations. With
reference to the philosophy of Locke, Condillac makes the follow-
ing criticism : " The greater part of the judgments which are
united to all sensation escaped him [Locke] . He did not realize
that we must learn to touch, to see, and to hear, etc. All the
faculties of the soul appeared to him as innate qualities." 2 Reflec-
tion is not a source of ideas coordinate with sensation. Locke
did not carry his analysis far enough. " The sensations after
having been attention, comparison, judgment, finally become
reflection." 3 It is not our purpose to trace the system of trans-
formed sensations as they are variously related to the original
sensation, which Condillac builds up in describing the developing
consciousness of his statue. But with reference to Biran it is
necessary to consider, at least very briefly, the place of desire and
will in the view of the author of the Traite des sensations.

The sensations from the first have an affective quality. While
the statue is for itself nothing more than the single sensation to
which it attends, that sensation is agreeable or disagreeable. Ex-
perience is pleasant or unpleasant even before there is any com-
parison of experiences. Pain cannot make the statue desire a
state that it does not know. The first sensation, however agree-
able or disagreeable it is, cannot lead to desire.4 Only when the
statue notices that it can cease to be what it is and become what
it has been, will desire arise from a painful state.5 Desire is the
'<?/. dt., II, Ch. xxvn, §23.

* Traite des sensations. Extrait raisonne, pp. 6 and 7 (Houel ed. ).
3Ibid.1 p. 19.

« Cf. ibid., I, Ch. II, § 3.

* Cf. ibid., I, Ch. II, § 4.

IO MAINE DE BIRAN S PHILOSOPHY

activity of the faculties of the soul when they are directed upon
a thing of which we feel the need. It presupposes the idea of
something better than what is at present existent, and also a
judgment of the difference of two successive states.1

With Biran will is absolutely distinct from desire, with Condil-
lac it is a further development of desire. The memory of having
satisfied some desires gives the hope of being able to satisfy
others. Although the outcome is not certain, confidence in-
creases in proportion as the need is felt to be great. The statue
then does not limit itself to desiring ; but it wills. Will is "an
absolute desire, that is, a desire of such a nature that we think
the thing desired is in our power."2

Personality is not constituted by the activity of the will as in
Biran, but is dependent upon memory. With the first sensation
there is no personality ; but with a change of sensation the self
"judges that it is the same which has existed before, in another
manner, and it says ' I.' " 3 This consciousness of self is so far
from being dependent on will that it is even antecedent to desire.
" Before being able to say ' I desire ' one must be able to say
' I.' " 2 The sense of touch is a unique form of sensation. It is
the first in importance in the animal life, -t Condillac names touch
the fundamental feeling. He even identifies it with personality.
This feeling and the ego of the statue are " only one thing in
origin." 4 It is by this sense that the statue discovers its body
and learns that there is an external world. This result is effected
by movement ; but contrary to Biran' s theory, the movement by
which we discover the non-ego is involuntary. It is determined
by the pleasant or unpleasant character of sensation ; but the
organism reacts without any plan. Prevision is unnecessary,
obedience to nature alone is sufficient. In consequence of the
organization of the statue, its muscles move its limbs on the oc-
currence of an unpleasant stimulus " and it moves without a plan
as even without knowing that it moves." 5

1 Cf. Op. cit., I, Ch. Ill, §§ i and 2.
*Ibid., I, Ch. Ill, §9.
*Ibid.t I, Ch. VI, §2.
«/«</., II, Ch. I, §3.
8 Ibid., II, Ch. IV, §2.

BIRAN S RELATION TO EARLIER THINKERS I I

With the discovery of something beyond the self, which is
brought about through the sense of touch, the statue finds that
the essential character of each sensation is that it leads to some
knowledge. This reference beyond itself transforms the sensa-
tion into an idea. " Every impression which conveys knowledge
is an idea." l Knowledge is thus independent of volition. It is
the final result of the transformation of the sensation. In the
beginning the sensation had an affective attribute, but not voli-
tional character ; and this last step in the development which
changes sensation to idea is effected by the influence of an exter-
nal stimulus upon a purely passive organism.

Although we cannot doubt the existence of body to which we
must refer sensible qualities, yet we are quite cut off from the
hope of any real knowledge of the object. For "considering the
origin of ideas it is clear that they present to our statue nothing
but qualities variously combined. The statue perceives, for ex-
ample, solidity, extension, divisibility, figure, and motion united
in all that it touches ; and it has consequently the idea of body.
But to the question, What is a body ? it can only answer, it is
there, that is to say, you will always find there, solidity, extension,
divisibility, and figure."2 The words being and substance are
devoid of positive significance. Our knowledge is sufficient for
our needs. An intuitive knowledge of the reality of the self,
which Locke finds by reflecting on the operations of the mind,
and which Biran finds in the consciousness of effort, is unneces-
sary in the system of Condillac.

The important characteristic of the system, for us, is the fact
that in this account of origins, Condillac does not make the will
fundamental. The will together with memory, comparison, re-
flection, etc., is derived from an original, affectively qualified sen-
sation. Knowledge of the not-self does not depend upon will,
but thg reverse is rather true, since will is a form of desire, and
desire implies knowledge of the not-self. This difference in the
treatment of will is the essential distinction between Condillac
and Biran. We shall see later that there is a striking similarity

i Op. cif., II, Ch. VIII, §28.
2/<W., IV, Ch. VI, §9.

12 MAINE DE BIRAN S PHILOSOPHY

between their forms of exposition and also in their explanations
of important points.

From Condillac we proceed to consider briefly the form of
contemporary empiricism, with which our philosopher was most
closely connected. Maine de Biran's first important work was a
study of the influence of habit on the various modes of conscious
activity. Destutt de Tracy was chairman of the committee which
awarded the prize to this essay. He was also the leading repre-
sentative of the idealogists. In 1796 he had invented this name
to mark out what he and his friends believed to be the proper
line of philosophical activity. Metaphysics was discredited, in
their opinion, because it applied to researches on the nature of
being and in regard to the origin and first cause of things, which
they held to be useless. Psychology meant the science of the
soul and also referred to first causes. Idealogy, on the contrary,
treated questions of origin as unanswerable. Whether we study
within or without ourselves all we can hope to accomplish is to
acquire a deeper knowledge of the laws of nature. Idealogy
adopted purely scientific methods of research. It aimed to be
the basis of grammar, logic, ethics, pedagogy, and social science.
By exclusive attention to the empirical study of mind, de Tracy
hoped to develop a system which should be more firmly estab-
lished and more fruitful in results than the pre-revolutionary phi-
losophy had been. Next to Destutt de Tracy the most important
of the idealogists was an intimate friend of Biran, named Cabanis,
who was especially distinguished for his physiological researches.

In the essay on habit, Maine de Biran begins with this essenti-
ally epistemological view. How closely he is allied to the
idealogists in method and purpose, can be seen from his own
statement of his position in the introduction. " In all that is to
follow, I have no other intention than to investigate and analyze
effects as we can know them, either by reflecting on what we
experience in the exercise of our senses and different faculties, or
by studying the conditions or the play of the organs on which
this exercise depends. I have tried to unite, in certain respects at
least, idealogy and physiology." l Again he says : "We know

1 (Ei<vres philosophiques, Vol. I, p. 1 6.

BIRAN'S RELATION TO EARLIER THINKERS 13

nothing of the nature of forces. They are manifest to us only
by their effects. The human mind observes these effects, traces
their analogies, and calculates their relations when they are sus-
ceptible of measure ; this is the limit of its power." l

In order to determine the influence of habit, Maine de Biran
finds it necessary to state his general view of the faculties and
operations of the understanding. This is fortunate, as it gives
data by which we can make out the relation of his early position
to that of Locke and of Condillac. With the earlier philosophers
Biran believes that the intellectual faculties derive everything
from sensation, or by receiving impressions.2 "The faculty of
receiving impressions is the first and most general of all that
occur in the living organism." 3 The impression is the result of
the action of an object on an animate being. The object, whether
internal or external, is the cause of the impression. Impression
has the same value as sensation in the ordinary acceptation of
that term. The impression varies for consciousness according to
which of the particular sense organs mediates the modification.
And in this respect the organism is a constituent factor in all
sensations.

There are, however, certain further operations of thought which
cannot be explained by a comparison of the products of the vari-
ous sense organs. This fact leads Biran to postulate a further
principle of classification, according to which impressions are
either active or passive. When we perceive a modification of
any particular kind in consciousness and have no power over the
modification, the impression is passive. Even in this case the
experience is not a mechanical result of the stimulus. The sense
organ by its specific activity determines the character of the sen-
sation. The activity occurs within the self, but without the
direction of the self. In the case of voluntary movement, we
have a totally different kind of experience. In moving the arm,
for example, after we abstract from every impression of the sort
above described which results from the movement, we have left
an impression of an entirely different nature. Here the self cre-

1 Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 17.

2 Cf. ibid., Vol. I, pp. 15 and 16.

id., Vol. I, p. 1 8.

14 MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

ates its own modification. It can begin, leave off, or vary the
modification. And consciousness apart from the passive impres-
sions gives an evidence of the modifications.

The nature of the organism is such that there is an intimate
connection between the faculty of mere sensation and the faculty
of movement. They are constituent factors in almost all experi-
ence. With few exceptions the impressions have a mixed char-
acter ; they are made up of sensitive and motor activity, and are
active in one relation and passive in another. The ratio of the
movement and the feeling varies. When the feeling is very
prominent the individual ist not conscious of the accompanying
movement and the impression is passive. To this form Biran ap-
plies the name sensation. If the motor element is prominent, or
even if it stands in such a degree of equilibrium that it cannot be
eclipsed, the individual is active and can compare himself with
others. To impressions which have these characteristics Biran
gives the name perceptions. In each of the sense organs there
is a particular relation of the two factors. Classified in a graded
order according to the decreasing prominence of the motor factor,
we have the sense of touch, vision, auditory sensation correlated
with the vocal faculty, the sense of taste, and the sense of smell,
and finally the impressions received from the internal parts of
the body which can be called pure sensations.1

To summarise the positions of Locke, Condillac, and Biran, we
may say that each makes knowledge dependent upon experience.
But Locke begins with a mind which derives its experience from
the two-fold source, sensation and reflection. And under reflec-
tion are found perception and will as modes of activity. More-
over, consciousness is a conditiosine qua non of perception and will.
Condillac builds up perception, will, and consciousness in general
from the action of a stimulus on a purely passive mind. Will is
dependent upon desire, and desire in turn is dependent upon the
affective attribute of sensation. Perception of the non-ego is gained
through a unique quality or the sense of touch. Biran discovers
in the original impressions or materials of experience an active and
a passive factor. It is the active, that is, the volitional element

1 Cf, op. cif., Vol. I, pp. 21-25.

BIRAN'S RELATION TO EARLIER THINKERS 15

which distinguishes perception from mere sensation and which is
thus the basis of consciousness.

The development of this idea of an active empirical factor is
the characteristic phase of his system. He identifies the self
with the feeling of effort. It is by making this perceived self a
fact rather than an idea that he distinguishes his system from all
forms of rationalism, which he regards as based on abstract ideas.
By emphasis on the " inner " and consequently necessary charac-
ter of this fact he differentiates his position from that of empiri-
cism. The categories of thought are derived from the nature of
the primitive fact, and his psychology is an account of the rela-
tion in which the self ' discovered in effort stands to the physio-
logical system with which it is connected.

In this connection we may note the relation in which Biran
stood to Kant. The direct debt of the French to the German
philosopher was very slight.1 The inaugural dissertation of 1770
was the only one of Kant's works which Biran studied in the
original.2 Biran's own estimate of the relation is valuable, espe-
cially since he did not, as was the case in reference to the system
of Condillac, over-emphasize the disparity between his own posi-
tion and that which he criticizes. He says : " Kant occupies him-
self with the classification or with the logical order of the means
(instruments) of knowledge, rather than with the real analysis of
the elements of that knowledge itself." The unitary subject and
the multiple object " are, in his view, absolutely undivided and in-
divisible in inner and outer experience ; for the object can be con-
ceived only under the forms of space and time which are inherent
in the subject . . . , and the subject . . . cannot be known,
originally, by itself, without the representation of some object."
Again, he says : "The subject and object are," for Kant, "only
two abstractions, no real or positive knowledge belongs to either
the one or the other," yet " all reality consists only in the union
of these two abstracts elements."3 The critical philosophy by

1 The principal sources of Biran's knowledge of Kant were, probably, Gerando's
Histoire compares des systemes (1804) first edition, and the second volume of Ancil-
lon's Melanges. Cf. (Euvres inedites, Vol. I, p. 1 66.

2 Kiihtmann, Maine de Biran, p. 58.

3 CEuvres inedites, Vol. I, pp. 167-8.

1 6 MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

investing every sensation with space and time which are the in-
herent forms of sensibility, " makes no distinction between the
different kinds of sensations, inner and outer, or the two sorts of
elements in a single complete sensation," l the representative and
the unrepresentative elements which occur now singly and now
together. It is clear that for Biran the subject-object relation is
psychological while for Kant it is epistemological.

We may easily work out objections to Biran' s philosophy from
the Kantian point of view. The self as a fact of immediate per-
ception admittedly contains an empirical factor. Therefore any
deductive account of the principle of knowledge based upon this
self must be devoid of the character of absolute necessity. " If our
knowledge of thinking beings in general, so far as it is derived
from pure reason, were founded on more than the cogito, and if
we made use at the same time of observations on the play of our
thoughts and the natural laws of the thinking self, derived from
them, we should have before us an empirical psychology, which
would form a kind of physiology of the internal sense, and perhaps
explain its manifestations, but would never help us to understand
such properties as do not fall under any possible experience (as,
for instance, simplicity), or to teach apodictically anything touching
the nature of thinking beings in general." 2 If, however, we pass
over this objection and provisionally admit the validity of deduc-
tions from the psychological self, we find the same difficulty in
Biran' s system which Kant finds in rational psychology in gen-
eral, that is, " reason imposes upon us an apparent knowledge
only, by representing the constant logical subject of thought as
the knowledge of the real subject in which that knowledge
inheres. Of that subject, however, we have not and cannot have
the slightest knowledge, because consciousness is that which alone
changes representation into thoughts, and in which, therefore, as
the transcendental subject, all our perceptions must be found.
Besides this logical meaning of the I, we have no knowledge of
the subject in itself, which forms the substratum and foundation
of it and of all our thoughts." 3

1 (Euvres philosophiques, Vol. Ill, p. 240.

2 Critique of Pure Reason (trans, by Max Miiller), p. 283.
9 Ibid., pp. 285-286.

I

BIKAN'S RELATION TO EARLIER THINKERS 17

Biran has been compared to Kant with reference to the concept
of self-activity. Let us see now just how much and how little
real resemblance there is.

Konig called Biran the French Kant. But the compari-
son is employed with reference to the emphasis that each of the
philosophers gives to the " spontaneity of the subject." More-
over Konig points out the different applications of the concept in
the two cases. " The same idea of spontaneity by means of
which Kant reformed empirical epistemology is applied by
Biran to the psychology of sensationalism. That which was an
epistemological hypothesis in the first instance appears as a psy-
chological fact in the second. The counterpart of the transcen-
dental function of the understanding meets us as the empirical
activity of the psychological subject." l Konig regards Biran's
psychological deduction of the categories as entirely unsatisfactory.
" Although Biran's attempt to deduce the pure concepts of the
understanding from inner perception is to be regarded as unsuc-
cessful and his identification of the logical subject with the subject
as object of inner perception is an error which manifests itself by
its consequences, yet his work is of great interest, etc." 2 Again,
epistemology " has emancipated itself more and more from psy-
chology." : Levy-Bruhl finds great resemblance between Biran
and Kant apparently because neither the one nor the other
believed that " by means of analysis based on purely internal
experience, we can . . . arrive at the notion of a substantial
ego." 4 But we find that in Kant soul-substance is opposed to a
transcendental unity while in Biran it is opposed to a real force.

With Kant the principle of activity is involved throughout the
whole of consciousness. With Biran it is a particular element
in consciousness. Will is a part of mind over against other
parts, passive elements, as pure sensations, desires, pleasure,,
pain, etc. Consciousness is a sum of mental elements, which
respectively derive their significance and value from the relation
in which they stand to the active element, will, rather than a

iPhilosophische Monatshefte, Vol. XXV, pp. 160 ff.

2 Ibid., p. 169.

3 Ibid., pp. 190-191.

* History of Modern Philosophy in France (Eng. trans.), p. 327.

1 8 MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

unity which is organically related to its parts. The result is that,
for Biran, the self is one element, or part, abstracted from con-
sciousness, rather than the total subjective side of a unitary ex-
perience. Consequently, the self is a special fact to be verified
by introspection in the same manner as any other part within
consciousness. It differs from the other simple elements by
reason of its active character, and its universal occurrence
throughout the conscious life ; but not by including the other
elements within itself. The difference between Kant and Biran
will become very clear as we trace the relation of the self taken
as a particular element to the ideas of substance, identity, and
•causality. And it will also receive illustration when later in the
psychology we trace it as one constituent factor in the mental
life.

Naville places Biran, as an opponent of skepticism, with Kant
and Reid. " The formal denial of the principle of causality in
the writings of the skeptical Scotsman (Hume) gave him (Biran)
the full consciousness of the value of his own thought. When
we consider the importance which he attached to the principle,
and the attention he gave to the arguments of the skeptic even in
their minutest detail, we feel authorized to say that he is on the
same ground with Kant and Reid. . . . He accomplished the
same work of struggle and restoration as Kant and Reid, but he
accomplished it in other ways." l Naville compares Biran's
psychology with the "phenomenalism " of the Scottish school,
as represented by Dugald Stewart.

For the present consideration, however, it is more important
to compare Biran's principles with those of Reid, as the real
head of the Scottish school. Seth- has shown very clearly
Reid's method of attacking the "Idealistic school" (Descartes,
Locke, and Hume). Reid struck directly at the root-assumption,
" namely that experience yields as its ultimate data such self-sub-
sistent, ' loose,' or relationless units of sensation as Hume be-
gins and ends with." 2 "We do not start, he insists, with ideas,
but with judgments. So far from being the primitive act of

1 (Ettvres inedites, Vol. I, pp. cix, ex.

2 A. Seth, Scottish Philosophy, p. 73.

BIRAN'S RELATION TO EARLIER THINKERS 19

mind, Simple Apprehension or the knowledge of sensations per
se, is a species of abstract contemplation." l " Our first having
of a sensation is at the same time the knowledge of a present
object, and (implicitly) of that object as somehow related to
me." l Biran, on the other hand, develops farther rather than
opposes the ideas of the English school. He reduces the theory
of simple apprehension to more ultimate terms but does not sub-
stitute for that theory the view that "judgment is the primitive
act of mind." The impression is something requiring analysis ;
but it is explained by a fact of immediate experience. The im-
mediate knowledge of the self is a particular kind of simple appre-
hension rather than a judgment.

Another point of difference between Reid and Biran is in the
character of the ontology which is required by their respective
theories of knowledge. Seth says " it might be argued that by
maintaining a theory of immediate perception, Scottish philosophy
destroys the foreignness of matter to mind, and thus implicitly
removes the only foundation of a real dualism."2 Biran very
explicitly teaches dualism. The resistance which meets the
will in effort is foreign to the self. Our knowledge of reality may
become more determinate ; but that reality itself always remains
an independent " other " over against the self.

The fundamental differences between Reid and Biran become
still clearer when we consider their treatment of particular topics.
As will is the central idea in Biran' s system, and as it is in the
act of will that we discover the self, it is advisable to consider
what will is for Reid. His definition is as follows : " Every man
is conscious of a power to determine in things which he conceives
to depend upon his determination. To this power we give the
name of will." There are some characteristics of will which we
must notice. First, "every act of will must have an object" : a
man cannot "will without willing something." Second, "the
immediate object of will must be some action of our own." Third,
" the object of our volition must be something which we believe
to be in our power and to depend upon our will." Fourth,

1 Op. dt., p. 78.

2 Ibid., pp. 76-77.

2O MAINE DE B1KAN S PHILOSOPHY

" volition is accompanied with an effort to execute that which we
willed." Finally, "in all determinations of the mind that are of
any importance, there must be something in the preceding state
of the mind that disposes or inclines us to that determination." l

In Reid's first observation concerning the will, that is, in the
statement that the will must have an object, we meet with a diver-
gence from Biran's view. For from the latter standpoint, the
will, it is true, meets a resistance, but not with an object in the
strict sense of the term. There comes to be an object only after
the will has been in activity and the resistance has been abstracted
from the complete act of will. In fact, the resistance does not
become an explicit object until the distinction between inner and
outer experience has been developed. Passing to the fourth
characteristic of the will, that is, that it must be accompanied by
effort, we find another distinction between the views of Reid and
of Biran. With the latter, effort is not a second act supplemen-
tary to the act of will, but it is our consciousness of the act of
will, the will meets with resistance. Reid thinks of the matter in
psychical terms, while Biran makes the act depend on the pres-
ence of the muscular system. Finally, in Reid's view, there
must be a motive to will, but for Biran the will is the basis of all
cognitive experience, and consequently of all explicit motives.
These points make clear the radical difference in the ideas of will
that are found in the two systems, and we now pass on to differ-
ences on other important questions.

Reid makes "judgment and belief in some cases precede simple
apprehension." " Instead of saying that the belief or knowledge
is got by putting together and comparing the simple apprehen-
sions, we ought rather to say that simple apprehension is per-
formed by resolving and analysing a natural and original j udgment. ' '
" The belief which accompanies sensation and memory is a simple
act of the mind which cannot be defined." 2 Moreover this
belief applies to the subject as well as to the object. "Thought
must have a subject and be the act of some thinking being." The
existence of the subject and object are not derived from sensa-
tions. "They are judgments of nature . . . judgments not got

1 Collected Writings (8th ed.), pp. 530-533

2 Ibid., pp. 106-108.

BIRAN S RELATION TO EARLIER THINKERS 21

by comparing ideas, . . . but immediately inspired by our con-
stitution." l With Biran the idea of the subject is derived from
an analysis of inner sensation ; the idea of the object is developed
from the resistance which meets conscious effort.

With Reid notions or conceptions are distinguished very sharply
from sensations. They are the " result of our constitution," the
power by which they are acquired " is neither sensation nor re-
flection." Extension, figure, and motion " are not ideas of sensa-
tion, nor like to any sensation." 2 With Biran, sensation and
perception differ simply in respect to the degree of volitional ac-
tivity involved. In sensation there is merely enough activity
present to maintain consciousness, but in perception the self is in
some degree attentive.

Reid answered Hume by attacking the principle that ideas, or
impressions, are the only reality. The self and the object are
real and are known by natural judgments. Biran answered Hume
by finding an idea, or impression, which had been overlooked in
the analysis, that is, the feeling of self discovered in the conscious-
ness of effort.

1 Op. df., p. no.

*Ibid., p. 128.

SECTION IV.

PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY.

In giving a general account of Maine de Biran's philosophy in
its completed form I shall follow the divisions of the subject which
he made in the Essai sur les fondements de la psychologic. We
shall look first at the primitive fact of consciousness, then at the
deduction of the categories, and finally at the psychology. First,
there is a description of the primitive fact of voluntary activity in
which the author maintains that we have a direct perception of
the self. This fact is for him the real basis of consciousness.
Secondly, the primitive fact of consciousness gives what he re-
gards as a real basis for the ideas of substance, causality, and
unity. We have then in this connection his metaphysics in so
far as he has given one. Finally, in the third part of the work
there is the psychology proper, in which the principle of volun-
tary activity is traced through the various degrees of relation that
it sustains to an underlying basis of unconscious and purely affec-
tive life.

/ Maine de Biran's philosophy is founded upon psychology,
in the sense that he aims to derive rather than postulate episte-
mological principles. The beginning is a fact, but it is not a
fact in the common signification of the term, in the sense of a
relation independent of the subject ; it is a fact of inner experience
(sens intime), the primary activity of consciousness. The philoso-
pher is very careful to define this ultimate factor of experience
and knowledge. He distinguishes it from simple sensation by
elaborating the difficulties involved in the contingent and unrelated
character of external impressions ; and he differentiates it from per-
ception in general by emphasizing the relative character of objec-
tive knowledge. We do not apply the name fact to all that ex-
ists for us, all that we perceive without or sense within ourselves,
or all that we can conceive. We have a fact only when we are
aware of our own individual existence and of the existence of

22

PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF BIRAN S PHILOSOPHY 2$

something else, an object or modification, that accompanies our
own existence and yet is distinct from it. "A fact is nothing
unless it is known, unless there is an individual and permanent
subject which knows." l

This definition excludes mere sensation from the category of fact.
And, in consequence, we cannot place the origin of knowledge
in sensation. So long as the subject is identified with its modifi-
cation, so long as it has no individual existence, or self, and is not
distinguished from the object that is known, we do not have
knowledge. On this distinction rests the fact of knowledge which
we can justly call primitive, for nothing can be conceived without
it and all other knowledge presupposes it as a necessary condi-
tion.2 To be self or in self is essential if one is to perceive the
simplest fact or know in the slightest degree. There is also
a negative proof of this position. Experience shows that the
more vividly we are affected, the less our impressions or the
objects which excite them are facts for us. Consequently, we
can conclude that there would be no knowledge of any kind
for a purely sensitive being. The primitive fact is not the simple
sensation, but the idea of the sensation which is possible only with
the individuality of the self.3

The conception of the basis of consciousness as a relation be-
tween the self and the not-self seems at first to exclude the dis-
tinction of facts of inner experience from sensations and represen-
.tation in general. The self and the object are known only in
immediate relation to each other. How is the self or the single
subject to know itself as independent of all sensible modifications.
According to Biran the confusion results from neglecting to deter-
mine the primary condition which makes external objects possi-
ble. If the self is identified with its affective sensations and exists
only in and through them, it does not exist for itself. There is no
relation, no fact, and no knowledge. But if the self is distinguished
from, as well as united to, each of its sensations, so that there are
internal facts of consciousness and specific sensations, the latter

1 CEuvres inedites, Vol. I, p. 36.

2 Cf. ibid., Vol. I, pp. 37-38.
a Cf. ibid., Vol. I, pp. 38-39.

24 MAINE DE BIRAN's PHILOSOPHY

are purely passive in principle and cannot serve as the basis of
knowledge ; they are merely hypothetical elements.1

Sensations are constantly varying both on account of external
causes and on account of the condition of the sense organs.
Sometimes they disappear from consciousness, at other times
they obscure it by their intensity. They have not the permanence
which we expect in the source of knowledge. In themselves
they do not have the nature of relations. If they gain this char-
acter through the judgment of externality they are facts but are
no longer ultimate. The primitive relation cannot be determined
so long as one of the elements is a vague notion of a sense ob-
ject. No one of the external senses can supply the kind of term
required in that constant union which is the fundamental relation
of consciousness. We are compelled to look beyond sensation
for the necessary element in the original duality, or the primitive
fact of inner experience. For the requirement of constant and
reciprocal relation of the two terms is not satisfied either by af-
fective or by representative sensation. Even when sensation is re-
garded as a primitive duality, the subject as simple and permanent
is distinguished from an object or mode, which is variable ; but
this is to describe elements which are abstracted from the rela-
tion which alone causes them.2

After this negative argument to show that sensation cannot be
the ultimate datum which we require, Maine de Biran proceeds
to determine positively the nature of the primitive fact. If the
subject is one and simple, and a real existence rather than a pure
abstraction, we can say further that the self, like any other exis-
tence, is a fact only as a variable or permanent mode of a sub-
stance, or as an effect of a cause which determines it. We have
to ask if the self is given to itself in the primitive fact as a modi-
fied subject, or as a cause, or force which is productive of certain
effects. This question has been neglected, or rather it has been
assumed that the soul is a substance, and thus no place has been
left for the principle of activity. It is true that we have in our
minds the idea of substance ; but it is not difficult to prove that

1 Cf. op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 40-43.

2 Cf. ibid., Vol. I, p. 45.

PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY 25

the notion depends upon a deduction from primitive facts. We
find also in ourselves the notion of cause or force, but prior to
the notion is the immediate experience of force. This experience
is no other than that of our very existence, which is inseparable
from activity. We could not know ourselves as individual per-
sons, if we did not feel ourselves as the cause of movements pro-
duced in the organic body. The cause or force actually applied
in the movement of the body is active and is called will. The self
identifies itself completely with this active force. But only
through its exercise is the force a fact for the self; and this ac-
tivity occurs only in relation to an inert or resisting limit. The
force is actualized only in relation to its goal ; and the goal is
determinate only in relation to the force which tends to move it.
The fact of this tendency is effort, or volition, which is the primi-
tive fact of inner experience.1

Effort is a fact, since it consists in a relation between a force
and the limit of the force. The fact is primitive, since it is the
first in the order of knowledge. The first sensations which give
the first perceptions are themselves aroused by the same individual
force that creates effort. This primitive effort is a fact of inner
experience, because it does not go beyond its immediate applica-
tion, the inertia of the physical organs. It is the simplest of all
relations, since all our perceptions depend on it as their essential
condition and formal element; and the judgment of externality
rests on and is an extension of it. Finally, it is the single rela-
tion which is invariable ; the constant result of an identical force
acting on an identical goal.2 In the Anthropologie, Maine de Biran
gives a somewhat closer determination of the nature of the effort
which is a fundamental fact in his system ; the active element does
not depend upon the passive element in human nature. " Life
and the material organism, which is an actual and perhaps a
necessary condition of certain forms of thought, does not originate
the thought." 3 To bring this out clearly, movement is classified
as instinctive, spontaneous, or voluntary. Spontaneous move-
ment is that which is " produced by the direct action of the brain,"

1 Cf. op. cit., Vol. I, p. 47.
*Cf. ibid., Vol. I, p. 48.
*Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 376.

26 MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

while instinctive movement is " produced by a reaction of the same
center following sensible impressions of the inner organs." The
important question for Maine de Biran is the relation of the sev-
eral classes of movements. " The development of animal life
must necessarily lead to the transformation of the first insensible,
instinctive movement . . . into spontaneous movements which
can be sensed in the animal and distinctly perceived when they
exist in man. We ask now if the spontaneous movements can
be transformed immediately into voluntary movements." Physi-
ology shows that the cerebral center functions in automatic as in
voluntary movements. But " something more enters into the
activity of the will in bodily movements than enters into the func-
tions of the nervous and cerebral organism, and that something
more, under whatever title it is expressed, must be considered
as ... a hyper-organic force," 2 which stands to the nervous
system as the latter stands to the muscular system. This is a
characteristic of man as distinguished from the lower animals.
Spontaneous movements which form the transition from instinct
to will are "the limit of development of the purely animal life,"
but "the beginning of the active life." We catch a glimpse of
the passage from spontaneous to volitional movements in waking.
Then " the self reenters its domain and seizes the products of a
force which is not its own." 3

In a letter to Ampere, Biran says that " the sense of effort is
the s"ame as the active muscular sense." * He does not admit
effort in the " mere action of the hyper-organic force on the
brain, but in that action transmitted to the muscular organism." 4

The cause of the effort becomes self through the distinction
which arises between the subject of the free effort and the limit
which immediately resists the effort. In this sense, the conscious-
ness of effort is the self and is known in its activity. It cannot
be known without this activity any more than we could really
know what colors are without visual sensations. But in either
case we can study the physical or organic means by which the

1 Op. tit., Vol. Ill, pp. 458-59.

*I6M., Vol. Ill, p. 465.

» Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 470.

4 A. Bertrand in Rei'ue de Metaphysique et de Morale, Vol. I, pp. 318-19.

PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF BIRAN's PHILOSOPHY 2J

experience comes about. This is especially necessary when deal-
ing with inner experience, in order clearly to distinguish the per-
ception of the subject from the perception of objects. The con-
sciousness of effort is restricted to that part of the muscular sys-
tem which the will can call directly into play. Voluntary effort
differs essentially from the muscular sensation, or sensation of
movement which we have when any part of the muscular system
is moved by an external force. There is no excitation, or stimu-
lus ; but the movement is produced without any force other than
that which perceives itself immediately in its exercise. When
we symbolize the activity by physiological signs, we can say the
volitional force passes from the center of the nervous system to
the voluntary muscles, while the simple muscular sensation arises
at the periphery and terminates at the nervous center. In the
analysis we are compelled to resort to these physiological terms,
but in the fact of inner experience we find that voluntary activity
is really indivisible and instantaneous.1

There are two moments of volitional activity. The first cor-
responds to the simple motor determination of the nervous sys-
tem and does not seem to involve any inner perception ; but even
if it did, it would not be the symbol of individuality. The self
does not know itself until it distinguishes itself, as subject of
effort, from a resisting limit. Prior to this the inner perception
can be no more than a vague consciousness of existence. The
second moment corresponds to the muscular contraction and the:
report to the nervous center. This completes the inner percep-
tion of effort, which is inseparable from a resisting limit.2

As already indicated, we have in this statement of Maine de
Biran's fundamental position the important characteristics by-
which he distinguishes his philosophy from other forms of em-
piricism and from rationalism. The sensation apart from the sub-
ject of consciousness is really nothing for that consciousness.
The attempt to substantialize pure sensation, by neglecting its
relation to the subject, and then to develop it into knowledge by
means of a purely logical process was, according to Biran, the

1 Cf. (Euvres intdites, Vol. I, pp. 208-12.

2 Cf. ibid., Vol. I, pp. 212-213.

28 MAINE DE BIRAN's PHILOSOPHY

error of later empiricism, especially in the case of Condillac.
This unfortunate result was due to the defective psychological
analysis which neglected elements because they were not readily
associated with particular objects in the external world. On the
other hand, the error of rationalism was the fact that it substan-
tialized the soul itself. A system was built on the idea of con-
sciousness made absolute. With Descartes the beginning was
mind substance and its correlate material substance instead of the
actual effort and resistance of psychological analysis. Leibnitz
came nearer to an adequate statement by his emphasis of inde-
pendent activity as the essential characteristic of substance ; yet
he also made the force absolute, contrary to the evidence of in-
trospection. In the primitive fact of our volitional activity Maine
de Biran believes that he finds a datum that is at once dependent
upon experience and yet can serve as a real basis for the expla-
nation of consciousness. Experience, according to him, when
accurately analyzed, yields a fact which has all the advantages of
an a priori principle. The unitary and unchangeable character
of effort is due to the circumstance that the two terms of the
relation, the self, and the resistance remain constant. The re-
sistance is primarily our own body. The general criticism of the
empiricists and the rationalists is that the former did not carry
their analysis far enough, while the latter carried it too far, and
that each school substituted abstractions for facts.

But Maine de Biran himself does not avoid the fault of abstrac-
tion which he attributed to his predecessors. If we consider
actual experience, we do not find his primitive fact in the
isolated form in which he describes it. The distinction and
the correlation of objective and subjective factors extend through
all experience. Effort is not a conscious fact, unless it is judged.
Consequently the effort which Biran makes a fundamental princi-
ple is not the result of a simple analysis of experience, but is de-
rived only by abstraction from ideational factors which are always
associated with it. Perception of the self is not given simply
in experience. The difficulties of his position become apparent
when we notice the implications involved in each of the two
senses in which effort may be employed as an explanatory prin-

PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF BIRAN S PHILOSOPHY 29

ciple of conscious activity. If, ( I ) while admitting that in simple
analysis the external reference is as ultimate as volitional activity
for consciousness, it is still maintained that from the point of view
of origin the volitional factor is more ultimate ; in other words, if
we make the problem one of genesis, the effort is then no longer
a primitive fact but a conceptual construction which we are using
as a ground for the explanation of consciousness very much in
the same manner in which Condillac used sensation, or Descartes
used soul substance. More technically stated, Maine de Biran
makes the feeling of effort, which he regards as the primitive fact
of consciousness, serve also as the logical ground of conscious-
ness. There is a confusion of method, a failure to distinguish the
facts of introspective analysis from those of genetic description.
He would doubtless himself say that there is no confusion, that
his greatest merit was the discovery of a fact which was at the
same time a principle of explanation. But in considering that
discovery we should note that for him there is no fact apart from
consciousness : the first fact is a relation. The primitive feeling
of effort is the genetic source of the idea of an external world ;
but that fact itself involves the idea of another, a resistance. We
cannot have an idea, a consciousness of another, or a resistance,
apart from the idea of something, perhaps indefinite, which is in
some sense external to the self. That is, the thought of con-
sciousness involves the thought of a reference beyond the self.
But if (2), the effort in question is taken to be logically but not tem-
porally prior to consciousness, it is no longer the primitive fact
of consciousness, in the strict sense. A logical distinction be-
tween inner and outer experience seems to be given a psycholog-
ical significance, and in virtue of this distinction a psychological
abstraction is made the ultimate principle of consciousness. These
difficulties are raised with no desire to depreciate the value of
Biran' s emphasis of conscious activity, but merely to question
the adequacy of his psychological basis of epistemology. The
deficiencies of the method will be more apparent when we have
seen its application in Biran's detailed accounts of the principles
of consciousness and of the phenomena of mental life. We shall
now consider his deduction of the principles of substance, causal-
ity, unity, et cetera.

SECTION V.

DEDUCTION OF THE CATEGORIES.

Passing to the deduction of the categories, we see that effort
as it is found in the inner conscious experience, is the basis, ac-
cording to Maine de Biran, of our ultimate metaphysical ideas.
To the exercise of the faculty of inner perception, we owe not
only the consciousness of the self but also the primary ideas of
being, cause, substance, and unity. These ideas differ from the
abstract class notions with which they are often confused. They
are natural and necessary rather than artificial and arbitrary.
They are the conditions of thought and belong to the beginning
of knowledge instead of being mere means or symbols. And
finally they are independent of the natural impressions with which
they are associated. They cannot, however, belong exclusively
to the very nature of an unconditioned and independent soul ;
but must, on the other hand, have their origin in experience.
We must not presuppose anything innate ; analysis should be
carried as far as possible. With the results already attained in
regard to the origin of personality, Biran thinks he can explain
the ideas in question without referring them to sensation or to the
nature of the soul. Prior to the self there is no actual or possible
knowledge. Since it is only necessary to introspect in order to
have the idea of being, of substance, of cause, and of unity ; we
may say that each of the ideas has its immediate origin in the
consciousness of the self. They can always be reduced from the
form in which they appear to the immediate and permanent type
which they have in inner experience.1

The idea of force can be originally derived only from the con-
sciousness of the subject who experiences effort. Even when the
idea is already abstracted from the fact of consciousness, it still
bears the imprint of its origin. We cannot conceive any force of
attraction or repulsion in bodies without attributing, to some ex-

1 Cf. op. cit., Vol. I, p. 248.
3°

DEDUCTION OF THE CATEGORIES 31

*

tent, to the bodies the individual force which is constitutive of
the self.1

The idea of substance can be derived from the elements of the
fact of consciousness or from the primitive duality. It refers to
what subsists or remains constant at the core of various manifes-
tations, and to what is beyond the manifestations as their common
bond of union. The first is the total form of effort which remains
identical in the two terms, force and resistance ; the second is the
organic resistance which is associated with all sensible modifica-
tions. This organic resistance is a permanent base, a true sub-
strate. It is no more an abstraction than is the subject of effort,
or the self, of which it is the correlate. Beyond all variable
modifications of sensibility, effort and resistance remain the same.
They are subject and object or antecedent and consequent term
of the fundamental relation of personality.2

Thus in effort and resistance, as they exist in inner experience,
Biran finds the source of the abstract notions of substance and
force. It is through the neglect of this ultimate source that in-
soluble questions have arisen in regard to the ideas. Some have
wished to make the ideas absolute and to derive the real from the
possible ; others have denied the reality of the ideas, since they
could not reduce them to clear representations of sense or imagi-
nation. The idea of substance and the idea of force which are
derived from ourselves and conceived by a reference to ourselves
have all the reality and truth of facts of inner experience ; but
their proof becomes obscure when they are applied to external
things. When we abstract entirely from the consciousness of the
self and leave only the bare exercise of effort, we have the mate-
rial, so to speak, of the idea of absolute force. Yet, in spite of
ourselves, a confused consciousness of our own force will mingle
with that abstract idea. Similarly, by abstracting bare resistance
from the consciousness of a continuously resisting limit, we form
the notion of absolute or possible resistance, that is, of substance.
This idea is always conceived under the form of passivity and
modeled after the organic resistance which the self perceives
when it is distinguishing itself in the exercise of effort.

1 Cf. op. cit., Vol. I, p. 249.

2 Cf. ibid., Vol. I, p. 250.

32 MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

Thus the abstract notion of substance is more obscure than
that of force, and belongs to a point of view more foreign to us.
When the primitive duality as the source of all knowledge is
analyzed into its two elements, the subjective or formal side, the
idea of force or activity, is made the principle of psychology. The
objective element, as the prototype of the idea of substance, is
taken as the principle of physics. This order cannot be set aside,
that is, the notion of substance cannot be made the principle of
psychology, or the notion of force the principle of physics, with-
out distorting the purposes of the sciences. Moreover, if either
principle is considered as absolute and the source which the idea
must have in a primary relation is neglected, the true process of
knowledge is inverted and the result is an abstract science which
is foreign to the reality of things.1 We find this scheme of the
sciences repeated and elaborated in the psychology.

The primitive ideas always elude the imagination and sense-
perception. The sense of touch, although it is very important in
externalizing our ideas of force and substance, has nothing to do
with their formation. We do not touch the substrate of tactual
forms any more than we see the real substance of light. Sub-
stance cannot be represented by the imagination. It is conceived
only in necessary relation to a certain union of qualities of which
it is regarded as the subject. But, although the imagination has
to do only with combined elements, or groups ; reason must
nevertheless presuppose the reality of the subject. It is the
unrepresented subject and not the modes that is conceived as
existing and acting.2

The reality of the principle of causality depends, according to
Maine de Biran, upon the possibility of identifying it with self-con-
sciousness or with the primitive fact of consciousness. We sub-
stitute a logical entity for a fact when we begin with the abstract
idea and set up the category of causality, or when we regard it
as a form of the mind, or a mere regulative principle of knowl-
edge. But we do not recognize the real value of the principle of
causality when we regard it simply as the law of phenomenal suc-

1 Cf. op. cit., Vol. I, p. 253.
*Cf. ibid., Vol. I, pp. 254-5.

DEDUCTION OF THE CATEGORIES 33

cession. It is easy, however, to show the difference, or even the
opposition, that there is between the idea of succession and the
idea of productive cause. The empiricists failed to do away with
the real application of causality. They tried to reduce all cause
to laws of succession ; but while they were able to discover some
laws and to classify effects, the real efficient causes remained
indeterminate. Each class of phenomena involved an unknown
something which was felt to be incommensurate with any sensible
idea. The efficient cause obstinately persisted in the mind even
when its manner of operation was entirely hidden from the imagi-
nation. The failure of the empiricists to substitute the relation
of succession for that of causality has been an argument in favor
of the a priori character of the latter principle. A priori ideas,
however, disappear before introspection. The idea of cause has
its primitive type in self-consciousness where it is indentified with
the idea of effort.

When Biran considered Hume's analysis of the idea of power,
he found in the facts which were brought out another reason for
the view already presented. After having shown that the prin-
ciple of causality could not have its ground in external experience,
Hume asked if the idea of efficient cause, or necessary relation,
could be based on the inner consciousness of our own force, that
is, on the power of the will over the physical organs or mental
processes. He concluded that it could not. But the conclusion
resulted from the denial of our ability to experience any force, in
any other way than we experience the activity in natural phenom-
ena. He made the value of external experience coordinate with
that of internal experience, and thus cut himself off from the
possibility of finding what he sought. In his view the influence
of volition over the bodily organs " is a fact, which, like all other
natural events, can be known only by experience, and can never
be foreseen from any apparent energy or power in the cause." l
Biran maintains that it is not a question of foreseeing, but rather
of sensing or apprehending the existence of the force. Yet, as a
matter of fact, the will or the very first voluntary effort is deter-
minate and carries with it a vague consciousness of success,

1 Hume's Enquiries (Selby-Bigge), pp. 64-65.

34 MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

otherwise we should have merely desire. It is this characteristic
which distinguishes voluntary movement from sensitive reaction,
and the facts of inner experience from natural phenomena. Hume
thought we could not know actual volitional force because we

o

do not know how it acts. His illusory assimilation of the two
kinds of knowledge is the basis of his mistake. We know the
power of the will over the voluntary muscular system, but we
cannot represent it to ourselves as we can represent an external
movement. The two processes are entirely different. We cannot
perceive colors by picturing to ourselves the optic nerve, the ret-
ina, and the luminous object. To know objectively the occult
relations of our own volitions, we need at the same time to be
ourselves and another. The power is known as presented only
to the motor being. The effect or movement is represented only
as we separate ourselves entirely from the being to which we at-
tribute the effect. It is only thus that the latter becomes an ex-
ternal phenomenon. When we wish to conceive the power in its
effect, we must establish the homogeneity between the two terms
of the primitive relation of causality. We must take account of
the fact of consciousness. There the subject of the effort per-
ceives himself, in inner experience, as the cause of a movement
which is simultaneously sensed, not represented, as an effect.

The inevitable effect of habituation is to lessen, by insensible
degrees, the consciousness of the movements or acts which are
repeated. This result is especially marked in the case of inner
experience. The principle becomes dim as its external manifes-
tations grow clear. Just as a light of uniform intensity to which
we are accustomed is not perceptible in itself and is known only
from the objects which it illuminates, so voluntary effort tends to
disappear among the various modifications to which it gives a
base and an individual form. Thus the feeling of power or will
decreases, and the causes of external phenomena get the ascen-
dency in consciousness. Necessitated by our nature to direct our
attention to these causes, we come to attribute to them the very
activity by which we have made them our objects. Thus, habit
which Hume regarded as an illusory influence in the formation
of our idea of cause is the very factor which tends most to blind

DEDUCTION OF THE CATEGORIES 35

us to the origin of that idea and the true principle of its ap-
plication.1 The same circumstance which led to the attack
of skepticism upon the principle of causality has motived the
errors of dogmatism. The natural relation which unites motor
force to its limiting term and the subject of effort to resistance
has been construed in terms of a mysterious influence, of the in-
tervention of God, and of preestablished harmony.

Lang gives a very sympathetic account of Biran's principle of
causality, but is not, I think, able to vindicate its epistemological
validity. He regards Biran's deduction of the category of causal-
ity as a successful answer to Hume's logical criticism, but con-
cludes " that the French spiritualist has limited far too narrowly
the sources from which the causal concept can be derived." We
have as clear an evidence of " the spontaneous activity of the
sotil upon idea process, as we have of the influence of " the will
on the physical organism." "Psychical causality" should be
placed at least on a par with "muscular effort." 2 Lang distin-
guishes the causal law, "everything in the \vorld has its cause,"
from the causal principle, "the existence and unchangeableness
of natural law." " Biran seems to have felt these difficulties,"
since he thought that " our belief in the unchangeability of
natural law rested " on the fact that " we must necessarily view
natural forces after the analogy of the I as incorporeal and con-
sequently unchangeable." 3

Maine de Biran finds that unity and identity, as well as cause,
are included in the primitive fact. From this original source
they are extended by a kind of generalization to the phenomenal
objects of external nature. The self perceives itself in effort, as
constantly of the same unitary form. From the single self are
derived the ideas of the unity of substance, cause, and finite exis-
tence. The objects of nature resist the one will, or effort, and
can only be conceived in relation to that fundamental unity. In
a purely sensitive existence all is simultaneous. But it is the na-
ture of the motor force, which constitutes the self, to act only in
an order of succession, that is, to be a single act of perception at

1 Cf. CEuvres inedifes, Vol. I, p. 265.

2 Maine de Biran und die neuere Philosophie, pp. 59-62.
. 3 fbid., pp. 42-44.

36 MAINE DE BIRAX'S PHILOSOPHY

a time, for the very reason that it is simple. That which is simul-
taneous in sensation becomes successive in thought. But all
succession must have a first term, and this leads to the question
of the origin of personality. Identity, like substance, is based
on the primitive fact of consciousness and has a double original
type, in the subject and in the resistance of effort. Personality
cannot be established on either of the terms taken alone.

According to Maine de Biran, Locke did not distinguish
sharply enough the true personal identity which applies to the
subject and to immediate perception, from the identity of an ob-
ject of repeated perceptions and from soul substance. The two
latter conceptions are derived from the first and should not be
confused with it. The identity of soul substance is deduced
from the identity of consciousness ; therefore the question whether
personal identity can change while the soul substance remains
the same is unnecessary.1

Freedom is another ultimate idea which depends for its origin
and validity on the nature of the self. Maine de Biran says :
" Freedom considered as the feeling of a power in exercise pre-
supposes the reality of that power, as the mere feeling of our
existence proves to us the reality of that existence." 2 Muscular
sensation can become active, determined by the will, and passive,
influenced by a force beyond the self. In this alternation in the
fact of consciousness, we have the type of the ideas of freedom
and necessity. To call freedom in question is to doubt the feel-
ing of the self. Biran thinks that any one could deny his
own existence as well as his freedom. Erroneous opinions in
regard to freedom are occasioned by a confusion between desire
and will. He defines the relation as follows : " Will is circum-
scribed by the same limits as power," " desire, on the contrary,
begins where power ends and includes all the field of our pas-
sivity." A further cause of error in this connection, according
to Biran, is a very strong tendency toward the unconditioned, that
is, a substitution of reasoning based upon the absolute nature of

1 Cf. (Euvres incdites, Vol. I, pp. 279-280.

2 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 291.

3 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 290.

DEDUCTION OF THE CATEGORIES 37

substances for the evidence of the primitive fact of consciousness
found by introspection.

Cousin shows very clearly the difficulties in this derivation of
freedom from the perception of muscular activity. " The theory
of Maine de Biran considers the free act only in its external mani-
festation, in a remarkable fact without doubt, but which itself sup-
poses the fact quite as profound and intimate, the fact of willing
with its immediate and proper affect. Here, in my opinion, is the
primitive type of liberty. . . . When we seek freedom in an act,
we may be deceived in two ways : either we seek it in the intel-
lectual element of the act, the consciousness of the motives, the
deliberation, the preference, the choice, and then we cannot find
it ; for it is evident that the different motives . . . command the
intelligence. Or we seek liberty in the physical element of the
act, and we do not find it there at least constantly, and we are
tempted to conclude that liberty is but an accident." l

Maine de Biran distinguishes the ideas of reflection, substance,
force, unity, and identity from abstract ideas in the purely logical
sense of general notions. All general ideas are abstract, but not
all abstract notions are general ideas. In analyzing a concrete
totality into its elementary parts, the attention isolates elements
which really exist only in the totality. But in the case of gen-
eralizations or comparison of different objects, the results are
qualities which are common to the objects. The ideas of reflec-
tion differ both from the products of abstraction by the attention
and from the products of abstraction and comparison. The ideas
of reflection are individual and simple while the logical abstrac-
tions are collective. The general notions become less real and
individual as they are extended to a greater number of objects ;
while the ideas of reflection approach nearer to real unity as
they become more abstract. Logical abstractions have a purely
nominal value ; but the abstract ideas of reflection have a real
value independent of any external application. Biran con-
cludes that we should analyze the ultimate principles of science,
if they are not founded upon facts of consciousness. When, on
the contrary, the simple ideas of reflection are made the basis of

1 Cousin, History of Modern Philosophy, Vol. Ill, Lecture XXV.

38 MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

science, there is no opportunity for analysis. Science did not
exist before the self; and analysis cannot extend beyond the self.
Metaphysics will be the real positive science of inner phenomena
and of all that can be deduced from these phenomena, provided
it starts with the fact of consciousness as a primitive " given," to
be established but not to be explained or analyzed. It will be an
abstract science lost in definitions and hypotheses without begin-
ning or end, if it starts from general principles and attempts to
establish science beyond all actual existence.1

Maine de Biran very naturally refers to Locke's treatment of
general ideas. Empiricism tends to regard all concepts as hav-
ing only a logical value ; Locke, however, distinguished between
mixed modes which are mere combinations of ideas, and general
ideas which necessarily admit of a real essence. Locke never-
theless " neglects too much the inner model which the mind
must consult in forming" the ideas.2 The model is not the less
real because it is not external.

Such in outline is Maine de Biran's metaphysics which is based
upon the fact of inner experience, the direct perception of the
self, and the consequent extension of the characteristics of the
primitive fact to cover the regulative principles of experience.
The. immediate problem is to consider how far these principles
derived from psychological analysis can be regarded as furnishing
an exhaustive account of the epistemological categories with
which they are associated. Sir William Hamilton shows very
conclusively that the perception of activity fails to account for the
necessary character of the judgment of causality. After criticiz-
ing the subjective perception of causal efficiency on the ground
that there is no consciousness of causal connection between voli-
tion and motion, he says : " Admitting that causation were cog-
nizable, and that perception and self-consciousness were competent
to its apprehension, still as these faculties could only take note of
individual causations, we should be wholly unable, out of such
empirical acts, to evolve the quality of necessity and universality
by which this notion is distinguished. Admitting that we had

1 Cf. (Euvres inedites, Vol. I, p. 305.
* Ibid., Vol. II, pp. I §4- 1 85.

DEDUCTION OF THE CATEGORIES 39

really observed the agency of any number of causes, still this
would not explain to us, how we are unable to think a manifesta-
tion of existence without thinking it as an effect. Our internal
experience, especially in the relations of our volitions to their .
effects, may be useful in giving us a clearer notion of causality ;
but it is altogether incompetent to account for what there is in it
of the quality of necessity." l Kiihtmann substantially agrees
with Hamilton's second criticism. While he thinks that Biran
was right in deriving " the objective concept of force from the
subjective process " 2 of volition, he maintains that " the develop-
ment of the concept of causality, that every change (effect) neces-
sarily postulates another (change) (cause) for its genesis, belongs
to the evolution of language and abstract thought."3

In this connection we may recall the historical relations of
Maine de Biran. It was his belief that he had established phi-
losophy on a factual ground. He was an empiricist, the intel-
lectual descendant of Locke and Condillac, and like his prede-
cessors is primarily an epistemologist rather than an ontologist.
And it is clearly from the epistemological, and not from the onto-
logical, point of view that he treats the concepts of substance and
causality. As Locke assumed a material substrate in which the
qualities of sensation inhere, and as Condillac had a stimulus
which was beyond consciousness and never completely included
in it, so Biran found a resistance to the will, which ultimately
remained an extra-conscious datum. This is one of the proto-
types of the idea of substance, the other is found in the volitional
subject. There is for Maine de Biran, as for Locke and Condillac,
a datum outside consciousness which is assumed as a condition of
volitional activity. For this reason he did not find it necessary
to regard the will as always active. The mind does not always
think. In an ontological sense the will is not ultimate, it is
merely the first principle of consciousness. \The simple sentient
life to which the will is always related, and in which it ^neets
with a reality other than itself, becomes more prominent in the
psychology. That is the part of Maine de Biran' s work which

1 Lectures, Vol. II, p. 392.

2 Maine de Biran, p. 172.
8 Ibid., p. 177.

4O MAINE DE BIRANS PHILOSOPHY

we have next to consider. The philosopher would be the first to
emphasize the importance of the resistence which the will meets.
He made no attempt to reach a fundamental unity ; but very ex-
plicitly maintained that the primitive fact of consciousness was
based upon a relation which involved two terms. Life, which is
simple in animality, the merely sentient experience, becomes dual
in humanity, that is, in conscious experience.1

1 Cf. CEuvres inedites, Vol. II, p. 4.

SECTION VI.

DIVISIONS OF THE PSYCHOLOGY.

We now turn to the treatment of psychology which occupies
the larger part of the chief work. According to Maine de Biran,
an account of the principles of consciousness, even when their
relation is shown to the primitive fact of voluntary effort, is not
an exhaustive statement of the characteristics of human nature.
Before the life of relation begins, there are impressions and in-
stinctive movements coordinated with the impressions, and there
is also, at least, a slight degree of pleasure and pain. Life in-
volves the fact that the organism is affected either pleasantly or
unpleasantly. Affections are the simple modes of pleasure and
pain which make up a life purely sentient, and out of relation to
self or to objective existences. ; There is a class of passive facul-
ties which are subordinate to and developed with the affections.
These constitute the animal nature, but since man is an active
self as well as a sentient animal, they make up only one element
of human nature. They differ essentially from the active facul-
ties of the intelligent being, yet in man the two elements are
closely united and constantly exercise an influence on each other.
The factors are combined in a manner which varies according
to the degree of development which the relational life has
attained. In order to make his method clear, Biran attempts
to isolate the two kinds of elements in human nature. By a pre-
liminary analysis he hopes to gain a higher stage of perfection in
his account of the psychological compounds. When the elements
are once abstractly isolated, it is possible to understand the part
that each plays in the phenomena of the mental life. (By a study
of the relation of the active subject to the purely affective life,
which gives the first real content to the act of will, Biran con-
cluded that the phenomena of feeling, sensation, perception,
judgment, volition, etc., could be classified in four systems.
According to him the classification is not to represent logical

42 MAINE DE BIRAN S PHILOSOPHY

abstractions, it is not founded on vague analogies, but is depen-
dent on real factual distinctions.

The first, or affective, system has to do with the simple modes
of passive sensibility. Under this head there is an analysis of
the various kinds of sensation considered with reference to simple
affective impressions which they are capable of receiving, and
with reference to the forms of stimulus which are correlated with
their specific sensibility, but without regard to effort or the activity
of the self.

In the second, or sensitive system, the personality is consti-
tuted by active effort. Our subject is no longer a merely sentient
being which simply lives, that is, is affected without knowing its
own life. An active self is united to the passive, sentient organ-
ism. The self perceives that it is in relation to the different sen-
sible modifications and retains its identity while the modifications
change. Nevertheless, at this stage, the self is merely the spec-
tator of passive modes which are produced in the living organism
without the active exercise of its own force. Yet the second
system differs essentially from the first. The self feels the affec-
tive impressions, it localizes them in particular organs, and attrib-
utes them to causes outside itself. That is, certain relations of
causality which the affections do not primarily include are asso-
ciated with them, and the various modifications are no longer
mere physiological facts ; they are modifications of a self. Sen-
sations are the " first composite modes." " The self is united to
sensible impressions and participates as an interested spectator,
without exercising its own characteristic activity." 1 This sensi-
tive system is the first in the order of knowledge, but the second
in the order of progress by which the sensitive and motor being
raises itself from a purely affective state to personality and the
various degrees of knowledge.

The third or perceptive system includes modes to which the
self is more closely related and in which it enters as an active
participant. This relation requires that the organ which receives
the impression be under the control of motor force. Although
the force is still subordinate to the impression, it gives the sensa-
1 op. tit., Vol. II, P. 6.

DIVISIONS OF THE PSYCHOLOGY 43

tion the form of a unity in multiplicity. A perception is an im-
pression in which the self participates by an action which is sub-
sequent to the effect of the external object. Biran defines this
third system as follows : "The perceptive system includes all the
phenomena arising from the action of sensible objects combined
with that of a will, which is still subordinate to the impressions
that occasion or motive its first exercise." l

In the fourth system, the self is united with modes which are
characteristically active. They cannot begin or persist without
an express act of will. The object or external agent is here sub-
ordinate ; the impression is dependent upon activity which is voli-
tionally determined. The active modes are homogeneous with
the primitive constitution of the personality. They are only an
extension of effort ; but they refer to some foreign resistance or
to results which are perfectly distinct in consciousness from the
cause which produces them. Here the will has, at the same
time, immediate apperception of the cause and intuition of the
effect. The basis of the fourth system is thus : " The act of re-
flection joined with perception, or the fact of inner experience
(sens intime] with the objective phenomena." 2

(The systems just outlined serve as the general plan for Maine
de Biran' s psychology. In his opinion the divisions have a real
basis in fact, but in reality they are logical rather than introspec-
tive distinctions. The whole construction depends upon the differ-
ent ratios in which conscious activity is related to the underlying
affective life. The affective life itself, however, as already noted,
is extraneous to consciousness. It is not a fact in the sense of a
primitive fact, but of a fact for an other, an outside observer. In
this respect Biran's psychology may be regarded as based upon
logical abstraction.

We shall consider his psychology more in detail by referring to
his treatment of each of the four systems. It is in this connection
that he shows the part that the will actually plays in his phi-
losophy.

i Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 8.
*Ibid., Vol. II, p. 9.

SECTION VII.

AFFECTIVE SYSTEM.

Simple affection is the element that is left of a complete sensa-
tion when we abstract the self, together with the forms of space
and time and the idea of causality. Affection, however, is not
regarded as an abstraction, but as a real mode which makes up
all our existence at the first and at all other times when the intel-
lect becomes entirely inactive, as in sleep, or when the self is
completely lost in sense impressions. l Lower forms of life always
remain at the affective stage. The beginning of the capacity to
be affected is possessed by the simplest types of organic life ; and
the higher animals can be regarded as a multitude of lives united
into a single life, or as a multitude of constituent affections united
into a single result. If the living being is considered as an ag-
gregate, and we abstract from individual unity, two features can
be distinguished in an impression made on any particular organ ;
first, the modification which that particular organ undergoes, and
secondly, the modification of the entire sensitive system. The
relative importance of these two modifications constitutes the af-
fection as painful or pleasant in itself, that is, quite apart from
comparison or even from consciousness. If the particular modi-
fication is relatively much stronger than the general modification,
the affection is painful, if not, it is pleasant. The painful or pleas-
ant impression sets up movements which respectively tend to set
aside or to maintain the impression.

At the beginning there is a vague feeling of life without per-
sonality. Life is the condition of sentiency. The impressions,
whether they are of organic or of external origin, are confused
with the general feeling of life, and for a long time retain this in-
definite character. But with the further development of life the
general excitatory character of the impressions diminishes and the
particular affections can manifest themselves. Thus the materials

1 Cf. (Euvres philosoph iques, Vol. 3, pp. 239-240.

44

AFFECTIVE SYSTEM 45

of distinct perception are separated and the personal element alone
is wanting to complete the first phenomenon of external represen-
tation. The impressions derived from the different sense organs
differ in the degree of ease with which they lend themselves to
association with the self. Some always preserve more or less
the character of general affections and thus remain somewhat con-
fused ; others are more distinct and more disposed by nature to
be localized or coordinated with their particular sense organs.
The latter class easily admits the forms of space and time.

In reference to the sense of touch, Maine de Biran says, that
when we abstract effort from the affections, they reduce to an
absolutely passive character and are deprived of all perceptive
elements, of all form of space and time and of all idea of cause
or substance. The affections correlated with the organs of taste
and smell are very slow to differentiate themselves from the gen-
eral affective system and even then tend to revert to a confused
condition. But in the visual and auditory affections there are
characteristics which promote the association of the passive affec-
tions with the self. These immediate passive intuitions are, in
the case of vision, a natural coordination of colors and the " vibra-
tory" character in virtue of which images are prolonged and re-
produced, and in the case of audition, the simultaneous and suc-
cessive distinctions of tones. In both instances the passive intui-
tions are due to the anatomical structure of the sense organs.1

Every modification leaves a trace in the organism, and thus
influences later modes of existence. Yet there is no memory at
the affective stage, since there is no consciousness. The feelings
of attraction or repulsion, which become explicit in the conscious
state, are often the results of affective modifications which the
living being has sustained in a preconscious state. 2 The intui-
tions also leave images which are reproduced spontaneously either
in their original order or in some accidental arrangement. And
the movements of simple reaction to stimulus leave after them
tendencies from which spontaneous movements arise. Spontane-
ous movements are accompanied by a sensation of a unique kind.

1 Cf. (Euvres intdites, Vol. II, pp. 25-31.

2 Cf. ibid., Vol. II, p. 35.

46 MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

In its origin this sensation is not attended by the feeling of motor
force ; but that feeling is immediately related to it. At this point
the feeling of effort or of the self arises. Thus sensation and af-
fection are for Maine de Biran the means of developing active
faculties, but they are not transformed into faculties of a higher
order. l

The affective system just outlined is the foundation on which
psychology is developed rather than a part of the science itself.
With the sensitive system in the next section we have the begin-
ning of the psychology in the strict sense of the term. The sharp
distinction between the merely affective life and consciousness is
also brought out in the work Division des faits psychologiques et
physiologiques. Biran says: "The self is primitive . . . there
is nothing anterior or superior to it in the order of knowledge." 2
In another place he speaks of the line " which separates forever
the physical from the moral sciences, and especially the science
of living and sentient organisms, physiology, from the inner science
of beings which are intelligent and active, moral and free, psy-
chology or ethics." 3

1 Cf. op. at., Vol. II, p. 39.

2 (Euvres philosophiques, Vol. Ill, p. 174.
*Jbid., Vol. Ill, p. 144.

SECTION VIII.

SENSITIVE SYSTEM.

The second, or sensitive system, is constituted by the simple
union of the self with the phenomena of the first system, already
described. When the subject of effort distinguishes itself from
the body as a whole, or the various parts of the body that are
subject to the control of will, there is a natural foundation for
judgment. This is the beginning of the relational life. Maine
de Biran here follows the general scheme of classification which
he adopted in the first system. The self is simply associated
with impressions and invests them with the forms of space
and time ; it becomes a spectator without producing changes by
an express act. By this simple union of the self with the affec-
tions we have affective sensations, by the union of the self with
intuitions, representative sensations, and by the union of the self
with those effects of affections and intuitions on the organism,
memory.

To begin with the union of the self and the simple affections,
we find that the resulting affective sensations are of two kinds,
particular or general, according as they are, or are not, localized
in the body. In the latter case the feeling of effort tends to be
confused or absorbed in the affective sensation ; in .the former
case impression and resistance to effort are felt as occupying the
same place, but are not confused.

The intuitions differ from the affections in the fact that they
become more distinct through continued repetition. The self,
moreover, is united with them in a particular way. They can
never obscure the feeling of the self, and when united with it the
relation is preserved with more constancy and uniformity than in
the former case. They also share in the primitive mode of
coordination in space. The self from its very origin cannot be
separated from this mode ; it does not, however, change the form
of the intuition but receives that form ready made from laws of
the organism which do not depend upon volition.

47

48 MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

There are three kinds of memory to be distinguished, personal,
modal, and objective. The first is a necessary condition of the
other two. In fact, it is the simple union of the sense of effort
with the organism. The sense of effort which does not result in
perception, but only extends to the voluntary muscles, consti-
tutes mere consciousness and also the duration of the self, or
personal identity, that makes memory possible. An examination
of the waking consciousness shows that the subject of effort
recognizes immediately his identity, his continued duration ; he
senses that he is the same that he was before sleep. No special
impression to motive distinct memories, nor any determinate rela-
tion between the present and past time is necessary in order to
bring about the feeling of identity. For these reasons Maine de
Biran concludes that personal identity is sensed independently of
affections, or of the passive intuitions of sensibility ; that identity,
or the duration of our own personal existence, is the cause of
objective memory, not the result as Locke maintained ; [ and
that the feeling of uniform duration is the necessary antecedent
of the idea of time. A very low degree of self-activity is suffi-
cient to give us the idea of personal identity and the idea of dura-
tion. But some degree of activity is indispensable. The idea of
self and the idea of time do not result either from the play of
merely external impressions on the organism or from the pure
cognition of external relations.

Modal memory refers to the quality of the modification which
the self sustains. It is not inherent in simple affections, but only
in sensations which are reproduced in a part of the body where
they have previously been localized. These sensations are not
recognized in their intensity but only in their general nature.

In objective memory, it is no longer merely our own being
which we recognize, either immediately or in an internally re-
peated modification ; we recognize or judge that an external rep-
resentation is similar to itself, by correlating with it our own
sense of duration. We recognize the resemblance of an actual
intuition, with an image which is the result of a previous intui-
tion. The element of identity depends upon personal memory,

1 Cf. Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II, Ch. XXVII, § II.

SENSITIVE SYSTEM 49

while the element of resemblance, which is also essential to objec-
tive memory, depends upon external representation.

The most important fact to be noted concerning the sensitive
system is that the self, when it unites with the simple modes of
affection and intuition, invests them with the forms, which belong
originally to it, and which are the conditions of its existence.
The consequence is that all conscious phenomena necessarily in-
volve the idea of cause. " That cause is self if the mode is active
or perceived as the actual result of a voluntary effort ; it is not-
self, if it is a passive impression sensed as opposed to that effort,
or independent of all exercise of the will." 1 " The belief in a
cause, not-self, differs essentially from the knowledge of an exter-
nal object. The first can be based simply on a sort of resistance
to even the vaguest desire ; the second rests on perceptible re-
sistance to effort, or determinate will. " 2 In this connection we
have to remember that the self for Biran is a fact of experience,
a relation discovered by introspection, or else we are in danger
of giving his system too idealistic an interpretation. The affec-
tions united to belief, or the vague idea of a productive cause,
take the character of relations and are called emotions.

There are as many kinds of emotions as there are affections as-
sociated with the self; but they can be divided into two general
classes, emotions of love and emotions of hate. The first in-
cludes joy, hope, and security, according as the desired object
conforms to our wish, or probably will thus conform, or is believed
to be in our control. The emotions of hate are sadness, grief, and
fear. In sadness we believe in the existence of a cause that can
affect us disagreeably. In grief we believe that we cannot,
escape, and in fear, that we probably shall not escape the effects,
of the object. The emotions can be called desires. Desire dif-
fers essentially from need or want. The sentient being has
need of all impressions which tend to maintain or develop its ex-
istence. And on that principle it seeks to avoid or repel all
which are contrary to or destructive of existence. But the simple
need does not make desire until it is joined to belief. Voluntary

1 CEuvres inedites, Vol. II, p. 67.
* Ibid., Vol. II, p. 68.

5<D MAINE DE BIRAN S PHILOSOPHY

movement may result from the influence of desire, but it may
also be contrary to desire. In this respect it differs from instinc-
tive movement in which the will can have no part.

With the consideration of affective sensation, representative
sensation, memory, and emotion, Biran has accounted for all the
classes of psychological facts which consist in the relation of the
self in its simplest form, mere consciousness, with organic life.
In the next section, the perceptive system will include facts which
involve a greater prominence of the self, that is, a more active will.

SECTION IX.

PERCEPTIVE SYSTEM.

The attention is the basis of the third system of psychological
facts, and it is only because attention is involved that the phe-
nomena of the perceptive system differ from those of the sensitive
system. Attention is nothing but the will in activity. But by
this activity certain psychological modes acquire characters which
they do not possess merely in their own nature and as subordi-
nate to the laws of animal sensibility. Attention is a degree of
effort superior to that involved in mere consciousness, that is, to
the degree of effort which renders the external senses capable of
perceiving or representing confusedly the objects that stimulate
them. Here the effort is determined by an express will. The
perception which was confused at first is isolated from all the
accompanying impressions that tend to obscure it. The attention
refers especially to the representative sensations which are already
coordinated in space and time. It does not exercise any direct
influence on the affective impressions. The act of attention does
not render the impressions in themselves more vivid, but fixes the
organs that are subject to the will, on the object, turns them
away from all other causes of impressions, and thus renders the
object relatively more clear.

In reference to the connection of attention with the particular
sense organs, Maine de Biran notes that attention is not related to
impressions of tastes and odors in so far as they are passively
excited or received, but only in as far as they, depend upon vol-
untary movement. The stimulus which sets up auditory sensa-
tions is at first the occasion of merely affective phenomena. All
distinct perception or special activity of the attention is excluded.
But the impressions are coordinated in time ; and under this form
of intuition, the attention is able to give them a character of
activity. We do not determine what we shall hear, but we can

52 MAINE DE BJRAN S PHILOSOPHY

listen, that is, give to the sounds a more or less sustained atten-
tion which results in making the impressions more distinct.1

Attention is a very important factor in vision. The structure
of the eye is peculiarly adapted to movement and consequently
is under direct control of the will. The result for consciousness
is very different, according as we simply see an object or observe
it with " active regard." 2 In the first case, we have a number of
confused images ; in the second case, one distinct image. With-
out the attention, several objects are sensed passively and simul-
taneously ; with the attention, there are rapid movements which
coordinate objects into one whole. In this connection it is inter-
esting to notice Maine de Biran's account of the effect of atten-
tion on after-images. He says, that he has often tried the experi-
ment of looking at the glass of a well-lighted window. If he
looked at the window for some time, while dreaming of something
else, the image of the window remained in his eyes, and he could
see it almost anywhere. But if he looked at the window atten-
tively, with a view of preserving the image, there was no such
result, he no longer had an image, but a very distinct memory of
the object.3 Attention makes the colors of an object relatively
more clear and distinct. This effect, however, is brought about
indirectly, that is, the influence of the attention is limited to the
voluntary muscles, and does not extend to the fibers of the retina.
Although attentive vision always proceeds by a succession of
movements and is thus voluntary in principle, the movements
become so rapid, easy, and automatic that they disappear from
consciousness. The sensitive and motor being participates in
vision, but does not realize, even in the most distinct percep-
tion, its own active part.

The sense of touch is especially important for Maine de Biran,
because it is the means by which we have a direct knowledge of
the not-self, and thus is the basis of the judgment of externality
and of perception. The primitive fact of effort gives us a knowl-
edge of our own body ; but the degree of effort, which is the
condition of mere consciousness is only sufficient to suggest an

1 Cf. op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 91-94.
* Ibid., Vol. II, p. 97.
s Cf. ibid., Vol. II, p. 97.

PERCEPTIVE SYSTEM 53

indeterminate not-self. The tactual perceptions abstracted from
resistance furnish unsupported images. It is the association of
pressure with a resistance, sensed simultaneously in the same
organ, which completes the relation of externality and establishes
all our objective knowledge. The pressure alone, or the resist-
ance alone, might be confused with an increase of inertia or with
the resistance of the human body ; but the union of a pressure
and a resistance, which is opposed and not proportional to effort
gives the idea of an external body. Neither visual nor tactual
representations coordinated in space can give the idea of matter.
The idea of a force capable of resisting voluntary movement, is
needed as the substantial support of all representations. It is the
center around which the sensations, especially those of pressure
and color are grouped. In virtue of the association of the idea
of cause with the sensation of pressure, that primary cause which,
as the not-self of effort, is indeterminate becomes positive and
determinate, as an absolute force. The absolute force differs very
essentially from simple muscular resistance which always yields
to the effort that constitutes the self. The latter is the essence
of our own body, the immediate limit of effort ; the former is the
essence of external bodies, the mediate limit of effort. The exist-
ence of the external force has need of a sign in order to manifest
itself in consciousness ; and the natural sign is the representation
of tactual extent. All the sensations which suggest the idea of
an indeterminate not-self can be construed as signs of that idea ;
but pressure, which is associated in an immediate manner with
the feeling of absolute resistance, is in a particular manner the
sign of the existence of a positive and determinate cause. Ex-
ternal nature is known directly in touch, but in the other senses
only indirectly and as they are coordinated with touch.

After considering the origin of the judgment of externality,
Maine de Biran analyzes the various forms that the judgment
takes. In the primitive sense of effort we have a localization of
the organs of the body. This can be effected without the sense
of pressure, that is, by means of the simple resistance which the
two hands, for example, could offer each other, even if they had
lost all sensation. But this is not a localization by representation

54 MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

in space, it is a mere intuition that the body and its various parts
coexist with the subject of effort.

The substantial judgment is reached by abstracting from all the
passive elements in the sense of touch and supposing a single organ,
that is, by referring only to a unitary resistance which is essen-
tially relative to unitary effort. To carry out this conception, it
is not necessary to think of the resistance as absolutely unyield-
ing unless we limit the subject of effort. According to Maine de
Biran, the Stoical idea of a world-soul was founded on the thought
of a will which is effective in the whole of nature. The impor-
tant thing, however, is to consider the nature of the unitary resist-
ance which opposes the will. If we abstract from all passive im-
pressions and imagine a consciousness made up entirely of effort,
then the object which human consciousness attains only by ab-
straction, is for this hypothetical consciousness an immediate per-
ception, the single real existence related to the self. This judg-
ment is substantial because it is the basis of all the composite
relations of conscious life. Owing to the presence of sensations,
we never have the true unity of resistance perfectly simple in the
mind ; but, nevertheless, it forms together with the unity of effort,
the -double unity, which is the foundation of all that we perceive,
within or without ourselves. On this simple relation rest the
primary qualities of Locke to which is accorded a real existence
in bodies. The qualities constitute, for Biran, the essence of
bodies and they are attributed to . a unitary resistance. But he
points out that impenetrability and inertia are more fundamental
than extent and motion.

The substantial judgment by which we attribute resistance and
impenetrability to body carries with it a character of necessity ;
the modal judgment, on the other hand, attributes the so-called
secondary qualities, which are in reality simple signs, to the idea
of body. It is an unfortunate misuse of language to call affec-
tive sensations, secondary qualities of bodies. The affective sen-
sation, that is, the simple union of the self with the affections, is
experienced as belonging to our own body ; the resistance is ex-
perienced as belonging to an external body. They are not con-
fused, but as the second is constantly accompanied by the first a

PERCEPTIVE SYSTEM 55

new relation, that of causality, is set up between them. The £xer-
cise of active touch does not, however, constitute the relation of
causality ; but, by its influence, the indeterminate cause, or not-
self, the object of belief, becomes determinate as a positive force
which can modify the sensibility in a particular manner.1

There is a peculiar kind of non-affective impressions that oc-
cupy an intermediate place between the modes of our sensibility
and the modes of resistance. These impressions, Maine de Biran
describes as perceptions united to the relation of externality.
They are the subjects of his objective judgments. These per-
ceptions are naturally projected into a vague space from which
the self is distinguished in consciousness. They neither belong
to the organs, like affective sensations, nor are they at first local-
ized in the resisting continuum. The localization indicated in the
objective judgment is the product of the experience of touch
and of voluntary movement. The perceptions of vision and pas-
sive touch which are given at first in a two-dimensional non-
resisting continuum receive a definite direction and distance from
the practice of touch.

Each of the sensations, abstracted from its affective character
and also from its volitional elements, can be regarded as adapted
to an aspect of the sensible world. They all are dependent
upon the forms of sense, but none the less are caused by exter-
nal bodies which are their permanent subjects. They stand in
the same relation to the primary qualities of bodies that our
affective sensations stand to the will. They are the true second-
ary qualities.

While the intuitions, or passive perceptions, leave after them
images which are proportional to the original impressions ; the
active perceptions, which are dependent upon the attention, leave
representative ideas that share in their active nature. The intel-
lectual operations which refer only accidentally to the passive
impressions are always involved in active perception. The atten-
tion is not related in the same manner to all the senses ; and
consequently there is the problem of determining the relation of
the various active faculties, memory, judgment, and comparison,
1 Cf. op. dt., Vol. II, pp. 130-131.

56 MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

considered as consecutive to the active exercise of vision and
touch.

The self can revive only what it has contributed to the im-
pressions. In the case of vision the sphere of voluntary activity
is limited to an attention successively directed to the various
parts of the field already presented in passive vision. But in the
case of touch, by a series of movements to each of which cor-
responds a memory, the subject creates a unitary resistance.
Here the associations are voluntary, as distinguished from the
accidental associations of passive memory (the memory described
under the sensitive system *). The visual images precede and
complicate the recall of the forms, but the sense of touch gives
us the true notion of forms. On the exercise of this active touch
is founded the act of memory, in the strict meaning of the term,
"which is nothing but the repetition of the simple judgment of
externality originally associated and repeated with each impres-
sion." 2

At this stage we have Maine de Biran's transition from atten-
tion through comparison and generalization to the unifying func-
tion of intelligence. Comparison is not absolutely different from
attention, but is an immediate result of the activity of attention.
Perception is always unitary, like attention, and consequently we
never can compare two perceptions, but only one perception
with the trace left by another impression.3 If judgment is defined
as the comparison of two ideas, the idea must mean more than an
image. The idea must really involve three terms, the perceiving
subject, the mode perceived and the exterior term to which the
mode is related. In the comparison of two modes, for example,
two colors attributed to the same object, the subject and the ex-
terior term may remain the same, while only the modes com-
pared vary. The result will be resemblance or diversity.

Spontaneous generalizations precede all exercise of the active
faculties. Beginning with these vague generalizations, the atten-
tion abstracts and compares to form regular classes, which seem

1 Cf. pp. 48, 49.

1 (Euvres ineJites, Vol. II, p. 151.
3 Cf. ibid., Vol. II, p. 155.

PERCEPTIVE SYSTEM 57

to embrace all the phenomena of nature under general titles.
These general ideas depend upon the modifications compared, and
consequently have a value relative to our organism. The classifi-
cations by comparison fail to deal satisfactorily with the reflective
notions, such as substance and cause, since these ideas are iden-
tical and universal, and cannot be coordinated by resemblances.

The distinction between the abstract notions of reflection and
the general ideas of comparison serves Maine de Biran both as a
methodological principle and as a solution of the great question
of mediaeval philosophy. The attention which compares variable
modifications and fixes on relations of resemblance, furnishes the
method of the physical and the natural sciences ; while reflection,
which deals with the invariable elements of the primitive fact, the
self and the resistance, together with their related phenomena,
opens to us the mathematical and psychological sciences. The
general ideas have no more value than the nominalist attributed
to them ; but the reflective notions have all the being which the
realist attributed to universals.

After this very abstract analysis of the elements of an abstract
psychological order,1 Maine de Biran takes up the unifying func-
tion of consciousness, as it appears in attention. The human
mind, according to him, tends constantly to reduce all the variety
of its modes, objects and representations, to a unity of idea.
This principle applies alike to the direct perceptions of the senses
and to the most elaborate constructions of intelligence. Our first
sensible ideas, far from being given ready-made by the external
world, are the products of a true activity, and the same rule holds
of our conceptions of every order. The purely sentient being
obeys laws of association which it cannot know. But the intelli-
gent being prescribes the association of which he shall take ac-
count. He chooses freely the elements that he shall unite, and
and finding within the models for his constructions, he forms
archetypal ideas of totality, harmony, and beauty, under which
natural phenomena are classified. The faculty of creating these
ideas is the highest attribute of intelligence. The principle of

1 Cf. H. Taine, Philosophes classiqties du XIXe siecle, p. 52, where Biran's work
is described as " a mass of abstractions, a thicket of metaphysical thistles."

58 MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

unity, which characterizes all intellectual combinations, does not
appear in our merely sentient nature, but is based on the first
exercise of perceptive activity.

In this connection it is very important to keep in mind the
general facts of Biran's system, otherwise we might give this
principle of unity a wider significance thart it deserves. The
principle of unity depends upon perceptive activity. Biran equates
"perceptive activity" with "exercise of the attention,"1 and
"attention is only the will itself in exercise." 2

The perceptive system occupies an important place in the psy-
chology. After an analysis of the respective relations of atten-
tion to the lower senses, to vision, and to touch, the transition
is made through active touch to the judgment of an external
world. The various forms of judgment, substantial, modal, and
objective are then described. Next we have an account of mem-
ory, in the active sense, that is, as involving attention, and as
opposed to the passive forms treated earlier in the psychology.
Following memory come comparison and generalization which
lead to a distinction, very important from Biran's point of view, be-
tween abstract notions and general ideas. Finally the section is
closed by a description of the unifying activity of consciousness
which is, however, worked out in more detail in the next, or re-
flective system.

1 CEuvres intdites, Vol. II, p. 137.

2 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 83.

SECTION X.

REFLECTIVE SYSTEM.

The fourth, or reflective, system, which includes the last divi-
sion of psychological facts according to Maine de Biran's classifi-
cation, differs from the perceptive system in considering only the
elements of unity or permanence in consciousness. Reflection is
"that faculty by which the mind perceives, in a group of sensa-
tions or in a combination of phenomena the common relation of
all the elements to a fundamental unity.'" For example, several
modes or qualities to a unity of resistance, several different effects
to the same cause, variable modification to the same self, or re-
peated movements to the same productive force. It is difficult
for us to conceive the unity of self and of cause, of subject and
object in the variety of sensations ; but the unity is not the less
necessarily given to us with every perception or representation of
which we are conscious. In another place Biran equates apper-
ception and reflection and defines apperception as " every impres-
sion in which the self can recognize itself as productive cause,
while it distinguishes itself from the sensible effect which its
action determines." 2

Reflection has its origin in the inner perception of effort or of
voluntary movement. In accordance with the method followed
in the earlier parts of the psychological treatment, we first have
a reference to the organic condition which makes reflection
possible. The problem here is to determine the means by which
the primitive facts become explicit for consciousness. In the case-
of perception, it was active touch which opened the way to the:
knowledge of the external world. The same means will not
serve in the present case, because passive touch is mingled with
active touch in the same sense organ. The desired ground for re-
flection is a condition in which the sense of effort is united to some
sense organs in such a way that its products shall assume a sen-

' Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 225.
id., Vol. II, p. 9.

59

60 MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

sible form entirely subordinate to the will. The motor and sensi-
tive being must refer movements to itself, as the unique cause,
and also refer to itself the impressions which result from these
movements. Then the attention which is always directed to the
external results of voluntary acts will not differ from the reflection
which is centered on the feeling of free power that effectualizes
those acts. The required condition is found in the sense of
hearing, taken in connection with vocal activity. In an analysis
of the correspondence between vocal movements and auditory
impressions, we may hope to discover the original laws of reflec-
tion. While the voice and hearing are closely related, the sensi-
tive and motor functions are naturally separated. This separation
of the organ under control of the will from the sense organs pre-
vents any confusion of volition and its results, but the close
relation prevents any external interference. The activity which
produces the vocal movements is reflected in perception. The
individual thus has a redoubled perception of his own activity.
" In the free repetition of the acts that his will determines, he has
the consciousness of the power that performs them. He perceives
the cause in the effect and the effect in the cause ; he has a dis-
tinct feeling of the two terms of that fundamental relation, in a
word, he reflects." * Vocal activity and auditory sensation thus
have characteristics which make them unique organs of reflection.
Hearing may be called the special sense of the understanding.
Biran considers that Locke was wrong in accepting reflection as
an innate faculty, and that even Condillac did not carry analysis
far enough in this particular.2

The first act of reflection is a consciousness of voluntary
activity by means of some modification which results at least in
part from that activity, that is, the perception of the cause in the
effect that is sensed. From this perception, reflection goes on to
distinguish elements which are coordinated in the same group, to
observe the mode of their coordination, and finally to rise to
universal ideas. By the first act of reflection, the subject per-
ceives itself, as such, distinct from the resisting limit ; and by a

1 op. dt., Vol. II, p. 232.
* Cf. ibid., Vol. II, P. 235.

REFLECTIVE SYSTEM 6 I

similar act of reflection the motor being, in articulating sounds,
distinguishes the vocal effort from the effects produced. With
this distinction signs are established.

According to Maine de Biran, man speaks because he thinks,
rather than thinks because he speaks. The first use of the intel-
lectual sign (the word) is dependent upon the primitive fact of
consciousness, that is, the immediate inner apperception of the
subject of effort as distinct from the resisting limit. The
impressions of the animal are confused. The sentient being does
not distinguish ; it is not a self distinct from impressions. The
defect is not in articulation, since some animals can imitate very
well the sound of the human voice.

The ground of the reflective notion is in us independent of all
signs. But there is a great difference between confusedly per-
ceiving several modifications united in a whole, and perceiving
distinctly the abstract modifications. The latter perception is
made possible by means of language signs. The individual per-
ceives that he exists from the first exercise of effort ; but it is
still true that he does not have a distinct notion of his existence
until he can connect the primitive judgment with a permanent
sign. Similarly, in order to have a distinct notion of resistance,
substance, unity, or cause, it is necessary to employ signs ; for
otherwise these ideas remain confused in the groups of which
they constitute the essential forms.

The treatment of words leads Maine de Biran to a further
consideration of memory. He again very consistently empha-
sizes its active character. Intellectual memory arises from a
repetition of an act of will. It has to do only with perceptions
which are related to the sense of effort. Mere affections fall
beyond the power of memory. They may be accompanied by
intuitions or perceptions, which can be remembered and thus we
can know that we have experienced pleasantness or unpleasant-
ness, but the simple affection cannot be revived. Memory differs
from imagination. The first is an active faculty which conserves
ideas by means of their signs ; the second is a passive faculty
which preserves traces of impressions. In every thought there
is a hidden activity of the voice and the sense of hearing ; " we

62 MAINE DE BIRAN's PHILOSOPHY

speak to ourselves very softly." l Since the signs are voluntary
movements, they become obscured by habit and are lost in the
concrete perceptions. Intuitions and images occur with the
memory signs, but they follow their own laws. In the exercise
of memory, the representation of ideas is subordinated to the
recall of voluntary signs ; while in the exercise of imagination,
the reproduction of images is independent of the accompanying
signs. The result is that we can recall only phenomena in which
we have had an active part, that is, that we ourselves have made,
combined, or intentionally imitated.

Reasoning is the most important topic that comes in for con-
sideration under the reflective system. Maine de Biran criticizes
the abstract view that reasoning is mere subsumption of particular
under general ideas. The deduction from general to particular
presupposes that the subject of the reasoning is a general term.
The process is analytic and the relation between the terms is
only quantitative. But the actual judgments of external experi-
ence have individual and concrete subjects made up of diverse
sensible qualities. Each judgment is a step in the analysis of the
object ; but the series of judgments of experience is not properly
called reasoning, because there is no necessary relation between
the judgments or between the series of judgments and the sub-
ject. However far induction is carried we cannot reach a neces-
sary relation. The major premise becomes false by representing
a contingent fact as an absolute truth. True reasoning, on the
other hand, depends upon necessary and eternal truths, such, for
example, as are found in geometry and metaphysics. The purely
logical necessity found in the analysis of a general idea, a neces-
sity which consists in fidelity to the linguistic conventions that
have created a collective sign, must not be confused with the
necessity which results from the nature of things. Reasoning
based on general ideas is hypothetical, since it treats the resem-
blances, which determine the genus, as identities. Biran would
agree with Hume that sciences based merely on external experi-
ence have only a descriptive validity. Moreover, each philoso-
pher maintains that mathematics (arithmetic and algebra) has

i Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 248.

REFLECTIVE SYSTEM 63

universal validity.1 But they they base their doctrine on different
grounds : Hume on the principle that mathematical judgments
are purely analytical ; Biran on the principle that they are
deduced from a real fact, the resistance which meets the will.
Hume denies the validity of metaphysics. Biran affirms its
validity as a deductive science based on the psychological fact of
effort.2

Reason 'iis the faculty of perceiving relations between simple
beings or between the different attributes of the same simple be-
ing. It presupposes the faculty of conceiving or judging the
existence of such a being,"3 that is, it involves reflective acts.
Under this condition the subjects are identical and not merely
similar. Since the relations are independent of the modifications
of sensibility we have the required characteristic of necessity.
Attributes are related to subjects, not as the particular to the
general, but by necessary dependence. They arise by the de-
velopment of the subject. Judgments which express this depen-
dence are synthetic. Analysis is merely a preparation which
stops at the simple subjects, that is, at the starting point of
reasoning. For example, by acts of abstract reflection, we reach
the distinct conception of the two elements of the fact of con-
sciousness, the self and the resistance. It is impossible to reduce
these ideas of real existences by any further analysis. ,

After having perceived the relations of the attribute to the sub-
ject in a judgment, the mind perceives the relation of several judg-
ments to each other, or the necessary dependence in which the
several attributes stand to the same essence. " Reasoning thus
consists in a succession of synthetic judgments which have a
common real subject," 4 and which are united so that the mind
perceives their reciprocal dependence, without having recourse to
any idea foreign to the essence of the subject.

Less abstractly stated, Maine de Biran finds that the principle :
" All that is true of a ... class is true of all the individuals
comprised in the class ; relates only to conditional truth. For

1 Cf. Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. I, Pt. Ill, §1.

2 Cf. p. 66.

3 (Euvres inedites, Vol. II, p. 263.

id., Vol. II, p. 263.

64 MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

classes are the work of the mind." This is the fact when it is a
question of relations perceived between qualities which vary in the
individuals compared. But the case is different when it is a
question of universal ideas or essential attributes, that are always
the same in all objects to which thought refers them, and which
are necessary conditions of all possible representation. Here we
are dealing not with a kind or class, but with an individual. The
principle of the syllogism can then be stated as follows : " All
that is true of the subject of a universal idea is necessarily and
identically true of the same subject considered in any other rela-
tion or combination." *

Universal ideas are clearly illustrated by the science of mathe-
matics, which, according to Maine de Biran, is not a science of
conditional truth, but a science of true relations that subsist be-
tween noumena. These relations remain always the same, they
are independent of all variations of sensibility, and they would
not change by reason of any difference in the organization of the
beings who perceive them.

Universal ideas, then, must have a basis in fact. Disregard
of this necessity is the error of the philosophers who have ab-
stracted from the foundation of reason and retained merely the
form that it takes in language. By isolating the purely intel-
lectual processes from the accompanying mental processes, they
have attempted to reduce all logic to a universal algebra of
ideas. But since the relations between ideas depend absolutely
upon the nature of the ideas, the signs which express those rela-
tions, and consequently the logical forms which are functions of
the signs, cannot be abstracted from the ideas themselves.
That is, the intellectual process of determining the relation of the
ideas can never be separated from the factual character of the
ideas.

The actual idea includes all the attributes which make up, for
us, the existence of the object, together with all the properties
which the senses can discover. The coexistence of these attri-
butes and qualities depends upon successive judgments of ex-
perience. The function of reason is to determine how all these
1 op. tit., Vol. II, p. 267.

REFLECTIVE SYSTEM 65

properties are different expressions of the same essence. " Be-
ginning with a primary attribute, for example, thought, or the
feeling of individuality which constitutes the subject a self, or the
resistance which constitutes for us what we call body, we deduce
all the other attributes or modes that we know by inner feeling
in the subject or by representation in the object." The depend-
ence of the idea upon the primitive fact is the first condition of
reasoning. To reduce the process to a play of language is to
abstract from the intellectual acts that unite judgments with each
other and with immediate intuition.

The object of perception is given to the mind as simple. Per-
ception is thus the immediate view of a simple and real subject.
No further analysis can make the object itself more clearly per-
ceived than it is by the simple fact of its immediate presence in
the mind. But by abstraction from the notion of the perceived
object we can discover in that notion elementary relations, which
are distinguished by the aid of signs, but which are not them-
selves objects of perception. Thus, while we distinguish by
signs the self, or effort, from resistance, there is no real percep-
tion of the self separated from the feeling of resistance. When
the signs divide the totality of the object of perception into parts,
the understanding sees these parts as necessarily related to the
existence of the whole. Here begin perceptive judgments which
develop the essence of the subject, not by making the notion
more clear or distinct in itself, but by making it more adequate.
They express the relation of the elements to the whole from
which they are inseparable. The result is the logical composi-
tion of the object, the simple nature of which does not in reality
change. All conception of necessary relation is thus connected
with perceptive judgments. The possibility of correlation with
perception becomes the mark which distinguishes the truth of
absolute certainty from simple belief.

After the description of perceptive judgment we can easily
understand Maine de Biran's conception of deduction. In his
view, perceptive truths, that is, the facts of inner experience and
their immediate consequences form the basis of all the work of

1 Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 270.

66 MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

the reason. The perceptive judgments are from their very nature
undemonstrable. They are independent one of another, and con-
sequently cannot be the result of any form of reasoning. But
there are secondary truths which are related to each other and to
the primary truths. Deduction is the process of arriving at these
secondary truths and of determining their relation to fundamental
truths. While the perceptive judgment is always actual, that is,
it cannot be recalled without the immediate recognition of its
proof, the case is different with deduced truths. When they are
recalled they do not become self-evident, yet they are certain,
for the intellectual memory, in recalling them, recalls at the same
time their necessary dependence upon an established first prin-
ciple. Without confidence in the memory no reasoning could
take place ; the mind would never get beyond the narrow limits
of primary truths. Since the certainty of deduction is essentially
different from the certainty of perception, there can be a condi-
tional certitude without the slightest degree of absolute truth.
Conditional truth only presupposes that the chain of reasoning
has been regular ; it has exactly the same value as the postulate
from which it is deduced.

As already stated Maine de Biran makes psychology a pure
deductive science. The elements of the primitive fact, when
separated by reflective analysis from their synthetic union with
impressions, become the true subjects of reasoning. Biran holds
that all ideas which give phenomena a fixed character, or which
establish necessary relations proceed from the self and not from
sensations. The two terms of the fact of consciousness, effort
and resistance, are the primitive and real subjects. Reduced to
their essential attributes, they form the respective objects of the
two sciences of pure reason, psychology and mathematics. The
sciences of description and classification, which are based upon
resemblances dependent upon our organism, are conditional. Nat-
ural science is truly deductive only because its facts involve the
application of causal necessity.

Resistance as a factual unity is discovered by reflective abstrac-
tion. The result is the first mathematical conception. The idea
is simple and individual ; unity is subject or common antecedent

REFLECTIVE SYSTEM 6/

of all numerical relations. The judgments which have to do with
that unity make up arithmetic. Geometry has its origin in the
same real fact. The line is the coordination of resisting unities.
In these sciences we can go on indefinitely without taking account
of any foreign elements. The identical nature of the elements
establishes the universal and necessary character of the relations.

Psychology is also an absolute science. It differs from mathe-
matics in the fact that its subject (effort) admits of no schematism,
or representation, similar to geometrical figures. While the self
cannot be analyzed, it nevertheless occasions the reflective judg-
ments which make up psychology. Identity, freedom, causality
of the self and of the not-self, the differences between effort and
its limit, are deduced from the primitive fact by a series of identi-
cal judgments. They are merely that fact seen from different
points of view. Maine de Biran is never tired of insisting that it
is not a question of " logical identities or of conditional truths,
but of real identities, of inner facts, of absolute truths established
by the inner sense." l

Some of the natural sciences have a certainty only secondary
to that of mathematics and psychology. There are two kinds of
causality to be distinguished, "efficient" and "physical." In
"efficient causality," "we conceive distinctly how a cause being
given in its most immediate effect . . . other facts must necessarily
follow." In physical causality, the cause is not given or con-
ceived in any effect which can be its immediate expression ; and
" the mind is limited to observing experimentally the order of
phenomenal succession." 3 Here the anterior phenomenon is the
physical cause. Now in cases where there is an efficient cause as
a first effect or known tendency, and we are dealing simply with
this efficient cause and with the simple modes of space and time,
we have certainty. This is true in regard to Newton's deduction
of the system of the world, for he treated forces mathematically,
not physically.

In true deductions, that is, those of the sort just mentioned,
there is no presupposition ; all is certain. There are, however,

' Op cit., Vol. II, p. 324.

* Ibid., Vol. II, p. 330.

* Ibid., Vol. II, p. 331.

68 MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

intellectual operations which take account of the mode of action
of physical causes. The result is an explanation of a fact of
experience, which has only a probable truth. In this method we
always have the three steps, experience, hypothesis, and compari-
son of the hypothesis with the facts.

The fourth system concludes Maine de Biran's account of psy-
chological facts. At first, he shows in detail how we arrive at
an explicit perception of the self. The remainder of the section
is given up to the application of the self, and of the other princi-
ples of unity which go with the perception of the self, i. e., sub-
stance, and causality, to the problem of knowledge. Reason is
described as depending on these ultimate factual principles. The
processes of induction and deduction are evaluated and the funda-
mental distinction between the abstract factual notion and the
general idea is again emphasized. Finally the validity of scien-
tific knowledge is investigated and a natural classification of the
sciences is presented. Before considering Biran's treatment of
aesthetic, ethical, and religious problems, we shall briefly com-
pare the psychology with the views of Condillac.

SECTION XI.

COMPARISON OF BIRAN'S Psychologic WITH CONDILLAC'S
Traite des sensations.

A comparison of the psychology with Condillac's Traite des
sensations shows the intimate relation in which Maine de Biran
stood to this philosopher. It is not to depreciate Biran' s origi-
nality or the value of his leading ideas that attention is called to
this similarity. In the early part of the treatment it was shown
in what respects Biran differed from Condillac ; and constant at-
tention has been given to the emphasis which the former placed
upon the idea of activity. But here, having finished the account
of the psychology, it seems necessary briefly to indicate the
resemblance of that work to the Traite des sensations.

This similarity extends not only to the general structure of the
work, but even to the solution of many important problems.
First in reference to the principal divisions, we have found that
Biran distinguishes four general systems under which he classi-
fies psychological phenomena. There is the affective system
which has to do with sensations abstracted from the idea of self,
and with the simple modes of pleasure and pain. Then comes
the sensitive system, the first in the order of consciousness, in
which the self is present with the phenomena, an "interested"
but inactive spectator. Next in order is the perceptive system,
in which the self is an active factor in phenomena. And finally
the reflective system, which treats of the active elements in con-
sciousness without reference to the merely passive modes. Turn-
ing to the Traite des sensations, we find that here also are four
general divisions. The first deals " with the senses which by
themselves do not judge of external objects," ! and shows "the
influence of pleasures and pains."2 The second part has to do
with the commencement of the animal life, with the stage in
which the statue for the first time "can speak of self,"3 and with

1 Traite des sensations, p. II.
''•Ibid., p. 22.
*Ibid., II, Ch. I, §3.

70 MAINE DE BIRAN S PHILOSOPHY

the beginning of memory.1 The third part relates to the judg-
ments in regard to the external object. The fourth part shows
" how we become capable of prevision and industry," "what our
first judgments are concerning the goodness and beauty of
things. In a word it is seen how man having been at first only
a sentient animal becomes a reflective 'animal."2

The similarity of the works is still more striking when we
consider the answers that are given to special questions. To
take an important instance, the origin of the judgment of exter-
nality, for Maine de Biran, is found in the resistance which meets
the active exercise of the sense of touch. Were it not for this
sense no other forms of sensation could ever give us knowledge
of the external world. Condillac had already given the same
solution to the problem. The entire third part of the Traite des
sensations describes " how touch teaches the other senses to
judge of external objects." Chapter four of this part explains
why we attribute to vision an independence of function which it
does not in reality possess. We have seen that Maine de Biran
made the judgment of externality depend upon active, not upon
passive, touch. Condillac after maintaining that no knowledge
of external objects can be derived from olfactory, auditory, gus-
tatory, and visual sensations, says: "Just as certainly there
would be the same ignorance with the sense of touch if it re-
mained motionless." 3 We have then the origin of the judgment
of externality explained by the same fact, the activity of the or-
gan of touch. The difference is in the introspective account of
the psychical accompaniment of the act. With Maine de Biran
it is an act of a self; with Condillac it is the movement of an
organism.

This is a single instance. We find the same similarity and the
same difference in the accounts given of other psychological phe-
nomena. For example, the idea of self depends according to Con-
dillac on the sense of touch. By this sense the statue becomes more
than a mere modification of sensations. According to Maine de
Biran, the idea of self depends upon the fact that our effort meets a

1 op. dt., II, Ch. XI.
*Ibid.,?. 39.

3 Ibid., p. 29.

BIRAN AND CONDILLAC /I

limit in the muscular sensation of our own body. The similarity
is obvious. It is unnecessary to go into further detail to emphasize
the close connection between Maine de Biran's philosophy and
sensationalism. Each is a form of empiricism, a development of
certain phases of Locke's system. Each is really a theory of
knowledge which involves a realistic ontology. The great differ-
ence between Biran and Condillac is in the idea of self-activity,
which is almost absent from the philosophy of the latter, while
it is the leading idea in Biran's system. The supervention of the
self, as an active principle, upon the phenomena of the "affective
system " produces the phenomena of the " sensitive system," and
it is the increasing influence of the active principle that explains
the higher psychological facts. With Condillac, on the other
hand, the problem is to show how the higher mental functions are
built up out of pure sensations, without the intervention of any
higher principle. Biran's work is in a certain sense a return from
Condillac to Locke, but there is a difference between the treatment
of self-activity in the philosophy of Biran and in that of Locke.
With Locke reflection is merely one source of knowledge ; with
Biran effort is a constituent factor in all consciousness. In this
respect Biran's position is an advance upon that of Condillac.
But his work rather shows the difficulties in sensationalism than
presents any self-consistent solution. His principle is subjective
and psychological to the end. There is no satisfactory account
of the universal and necessary character of the categories of
thought. Biran's historical significance consists mainly in the
personal influence which he exerted on Cousin.

SECTION XII.

ETHICS AND ^ESTHETICS.
/ —
I At this point we shall briefly consider Maine de Biran's very

fragmentary account of ethics and aesthetics. In connection with
the third system described above, he gives a psychological basis
for ethics. He speaks approvingly of the moral sense theory.
Human actions and natural phenomena affect us very differently.
Although the moralist can combine under a sign different ele-
ments which are not combined in nature ; the combinations thus
formed to represent real or possible action are not arbitrary, for
not all elements are equally compatible with each other. The
factor which determines the compatibility of elements, and so the
possibility of their connection, is the natural constitution of the
moral sense. Combinations which affect the moral sense in a
definite manner, or form the basis of the various classes of actions,
arouse particular feelings of attraction or aversion, of love or hate.
The qualities or actions which are suited to excite the same feel-
ings in the mind must have a resemblance. It is this definite
reaction of human nature which constitutes the unity of a class of
actions. This is the source of the common character found in
the general ideas of obligation, virtue, and vice. Despite the
variety of elements, all the mixed modes admit of a certain kind
of real unity.

The moral constitution of man, although variously modified,
displays a common character in all individuals. But owing to
the variety of feelings with which moral ideas are associated, it is
hopeless to attempt a rigorous application of the mathematical
method. There are, however, certain limits imposed by inner
experience from which moral ideas can never escape.

In the lower systems, affection precedes judgment ; but the
higher phenomena of the third system, e. g., the consciousness
of the beautiful, wonder, and admiration are consecutive to judg-
ment. Surprise is an emotion that arises from a contrast be-
tween an earlier state of sensibility and a state which a new im-

72

ETHICS AND AESTHETICS 73

pression tends to excite. It is strictly an emotion rather than a
sentiment since it is anterior to all comparison. When surprise
is very vivid fear results ; when it only moderate wonder is pro-
duced. In the latter case, the subject tries to attribute the new
factor to some natural cause. With success in this attempt
there arises the agreeable feeling which attends the discovery of
a new relation, with failure the wonder simply increases. Maine
de Biran agrees that wonder is the source of science, since "it
gives movement to the human mind . . . and ends by reducing
to intelligence the laws which control the universe." l Ad-
miration is not a kind of wonder (Descartes) through it may suc-
ceed surprise. The better we know what is great and beautiful
in itself, the more we are struck with admiration. Wonder and
admiration are essentially different from emotions, because they
are much more closely related to ideas, yet they do not influence
the ideas directly through belief. They have 'a certain constant
character from the fact that they occur whenever attention is
directed to particular relations of ideas. Emotions, on the other
hand, presuppose anterior dispositions of sensibility without which
they do not arise. a

Maine de Biran briefly traces the respective influence of the
emotions and of the ideas with their related feelings on the con-
duct of the moral agent. The individual, who is determined by
emotion, is bound to the attraction of the present pleasure ; the
individual, who is dominated by ideas, follows fixed lines of con-
duct. Attention can make an idea vivid enough to overcome
the immediate impulses of sensation. Activity is thus the condi-
tion of moral preference. The guarantee of freedom is the fact
that, while sensibility is limited, the power of the will is suscep-
tible of indefinite increase. Freedom arises from the opposition
which exists between the emotions and the higher feelings, and
from the possibility of choice that results from that opposition.3

In the early part of the Fondements de la morale et de la reli-
gion, we have Maine de Biran's nearest approach to the formula-
tion of an ethical system. A brief notice of this work will sup-

1 (Euvres inedites, Vol. II, p. 211.

2Cf. ibid., Vol. II, p. 212.

3 Cf. ibid., Vol. II, pp. 215-216.

74 MAINE DE BIRAX S PHILOSOPHY

plement his fragmentary treatment of the moral sentiments in the
psychology.

The relations of man with man are founded on a sympathy
which is contemporaneous with the very existence of the individ-
ual. They are distinct from the relations which man sustains
to the rest of nature. In order to be moral, the sentient and
intelligent being must attribute to other beings like himself, a
self, a will, and feelings and rights similar to his own. The
moral consciousness "so to speak sees itself in another as in an
animate mirror." l In this moral consciousness, the personal
affections are transformed into expansive feelings. At times
Biran describes this transformation as the result of sympathy in
the more affective sense. He says : " The strong measures-his
right by his strength ; the weak submits to the law of necessity.
But give to the strong a feeling of sympathy and love, and he
will aid rather than oppress the weak, because the suffering and
oppression of his weak fellow cause him suffering." 2 And again
he says : " It is first in the family that the feelings of benevolence,
protection, and sympathy arise and develop." : At other times
Biran gives a more rationalistic account of the relation of the in-
dividual and society. " What is right in the consciousness of the
individual . . . becomes duty in the consciousness of the ethical
person who attributes the same right to other persons." The
principle of all virtuous action is in the need of approval from
others, " that is, from the reason itself in which all participate
equally."4 The principle of duty has nothing in common with
modifications of individual sensibility, or with special relations of
particular persons, but belongs to free beings in virtue of their
participation "in that reason which illuminates all intelligences."

The variations in actual morality are recognized and are
explained as due to failure in estimating the real significance of
acts, or in finding the proper means of realizing ends. " There
is at least a very general agreement in the manner of judging
qualities which are truly worthy of esteem (those which tend to
1 op. dt., Vol. Ill, p. 33.

*Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 36.
3 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 48.
*Ibid.t Vol. Ill, pp. 37-38.

ETHICS AND AESTHETICS 75

the perfection of the individual or the race)." l " There is a'com-
mon principle in the diverse acts which receive the general ap-
probation of men." 2 Morality seems relative because judgment
is passed upon acts rather than upon motives.

^Esthetic ideas are closely related to moral ideas. Both classes
emanate from the same active faculty of the mind ; and each class
is related to certain feelings which determine it, and which it
always excites. The imagination can never free itself entirely
from the feeling elements on which it is established. There is,
however, a lesser degree of universality in aesthetic than in moral
ideas ; but in each case there is an absolute as well as a relative
element. Beauty applies to totalities of perceptions, of images,
or of intellectual ideas, wyhich are combined in a certain order.
But when we attempt to define the order more exactly we pass
from general to particular ideas, and each person represents the
order by the types or combinations which are most agreeable to
him. Consequently there is great divergence of opinion in regard
to what constitutes beauty.

The impressions which immediately affect the sensibility, such
as odors, tastes, or tactual qualities, have nothing in common with
the idea of the beautiful. They may be agreeable, but not beauti-
ful. Relation with the active faculty of perception, judgment, or
comparison is essential to constitute beauty. That is, a judgment
is necessary to establish the feeling of the beautiful, while a simple
tone or color may condition an agreeable feeling. Beauty requires
a more or less extensive combination of perceptions and ideas.
And a combination to be beautiful must not only be formed of
perceptive elements, each of which is pleasant in itself, but there
must be besides these elements a harmony, which relates or
unites them, which represents to the mind a multiplicity under
the form of unity. We do not know the principle in virtue of
which perceptive elements form a unity. In the case of tones
there is a basis for the principle in nature ; but we cannot tell
why the tones, the stimuli of which stand in certain numerical
relations, are beautiful. And we cannot carry over the laws of
harmony from the auditory into the other systems of sensation.

1 Op. cit., Vol. Ill, p. 41.
*Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 42.

76 MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

Certain groups of qualities appear to us naturally beautiful, other
groups do not. The fact depends upon the nature of our con-
stitution and the natural relations of our perceptive faculty with
objects. We can discover the relations in experience, but cannot
explain them a priori. The unity, symmetry, or order, depends
on laws of perception and comparison. The combinations in
which these laws are observed arouse in us the feeling of the
beautiful. Nature does not always satisfy the demand thus set
up ; the result is an ideal of beauty.

There is in art a certain amount of comparison, abstraction,
and combination ; but the resemblances, which determine the
class of objects that the understanding unites under the same
sign, differ essentially from the analogies, to which the imagina-
tion refers in satisfying the needs of the aesthetic sensibility. All
the qualities which tend to excite in the mind the same feeling
have the resemblance which is necessary to constitute them into
a single class. In the beautiful we have a combination of means
converging towards a single end.

Each art has its specific and limited domain. Painting and
sculpture reach the mind by means of colors, forms, or positions.
There can be only one time of action, a single situation. Their
effect is consequently immediate. Music influences the mind
without having recourse to images, it sets up a play of imagina-
tion which may be of indefinite duration. As our vivid feelings
are developed in time, music will always have a higher value
than painting and sculpture. Poetry also realizes its combina-
tions in time.

We cannot reduce the principle of art to imitation of nature.
The feelings which art arouses are inherent in human nature.
Artists discover relations between these f feelings and apply to
them combinations of elements modeled by the imagination. It
is true that some elements are derived by imitation, but the
power of the artist rests in the beauty of expression, not in that
of imitation. Any form of imitation carries with it the idea of
limit. Art, on the other hand, turns our view toward the infinite.
It makes us feel what cannot be shown in sense or represented
in imagination.1

1 Cf. op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 198-199.

ETHICS AND AESTHETICS 77

The relation of the absolute to the relative element in art is
determined in the same manner as the relation of ideas of reflec-
tion to general ideas. Relative beauty corresponds to resem-
blances inherent in the nature of the combined ideas, and conse-
quently is variable. Absolute beauty refers to the forms which
constitute the unity of the combination of ideas. Artistic good
taste is merely the feeling of order and harmony which looks for
unity in the variety of modifications. Taste is wanting, where
the unity is neglected and attention is directed only to the variety
and detail of sensations, e. g.y in the Gothic architecture, where
the grandeur of the whole is sacrificed to superficial ornament,
and in painting where truth of design is sacrificed to richness of
color.

It is possible to accustom ourselves to combinations of sensible
qualities, which lack unity, until we derive pleasure from them.
An object which is not beautiful may please by association of
ideas ; and conversely, an object which is beautiful may not please
because it is related by the imagination to some painful idea. But
the rules of beauty, though they may be forgotten or unknown,
are not the less eternal and invariable. Thus the external senses
and the imagination are not the final judges of real beauty. The
great artist by reflection and profound study finds the sources of
beauty beyond the sphere of sensation in the fixed relations and
proportions of parts with each other and with a unity. When
he has seized the form in the abstract, he individualizes it by
combinations of colors and figures which are directed to sense.
The individual picture, however, possesses a real beauty which
the senses alone cannot apprehend. The final product is a unity
through the artist's creative imagination, not through the arti-
ficial aggregation of parts naturally dissociated. The genius
can appreciate intellectual beauty, apart from any sensible mani-
festation, in a unity constructed by the scientific imagination, e. g.,
in the Copernican view of the solar system. Thus a real unity
of idea lies at the base of all artistic conceptions.1
1 Cf. op. dt., Vol. II, pp. 204-206.

SECTION XIII.

RELIGION.

Before concluding our account of Maine de Biran's philosophy,
we must notice the characteristics of his later development, as
they are embodied in the Anthropologie, and in the Fondanicnts
de la morale et de la religion. As already stated, Naville in his
general introduction to the works of Biran distinguishes a third
stage after the year 1818. But this distinction, as well as his
separation of the first and second periods, seems somewhat arbi-
trary. It is true that questions are taken up in the later work
which are not treated in the psychology. There is an increasing
emphasis placed on man's wider relations to society and the world.
But this is not a development of Biran's philosophy to another
stage ; it is rather a consideration of problems that were neglected
in the psychology. The fact that his principle of self-activity
does not adequately explain the ethical and religious phases of
human experience is not sufficient reason for considering Biran's
later work as a new stage. The truth is that his ethics and
especially his philosophy of religion is incompletely and unsatis-
factorily worked out. In the Anthropologie there is a comparison
of the values of Christianity and of Stoicism. Ethics as a system
of human conduct is not worked out in detail in this place.
The treatment of religion is confined to the third part of the An-
thropologie, the Vie de I' esprit, while the first and second parts,
the Vie animale and the Vic humaine, are less detailed restate-
ments of the position presented in the Psychologie.

After a somewhat minute examination of the last-named work,
it will be unnecessary to go into an elaborate exposition of the
Anthropologie. The first and second parts especially may be
passed over, since we have considered them in our study of the
nature of effort. Consequently we shall limit the treatment to a
notice of some of the principal points of the third part.

The essential feature of the Vie de r esprit is the consideration

78

RELIGION 79

of a third form of life, higher than the animal life or the active
life of man, that is, a life "which is entirely spiritual." l Man
stands intermediate between God and nature. In virtue of this
position he possesses freedom in his activity. At a lower stage
the personality of the soul is annihilated in animal life, at a higher
stage it is lost in God. " Perhaps man holds in the scale of
spirits the rank that the coral holds among sentient beings," 2 but
man is endowed with an activity by which he can rise in the
scale. The second life is given to man as a means to the third,
in which he is free from the bondage of the affections and pas-
sions. Christianity alone reveals to man this third life above
human sensibility, reason, or will. Stoicism did not get beyond
the second life and exaggerated the power of the will and of
reason over the passions and affections of the sensitive life. But
there is something more to be explained, that is, " the absorption
of the reason and the will in a supreme force, an absorption
which without effort establishes a state of perfection and happi-
ness."3 " This is the mystical life of enthusiasm, the highest
degree to which the soul can attain in identifying itself with its
supreme object." 4 The necessity of the second life, as a means
to the realization of the third, is emphasized. The absorption is
described as "calm" succeeding "storms," and as " repose of
the soul after and not before effort." 5 But, on the other hand, it
is not absolutely in the power of the soul to pass from an inferior
to a superior stage. The individual " needs a support beyond
himself. Religion comes to his aid." 6

The work of the year 1818, De la morale et de la religion,
gives a proof for the existence of God. " The principle of caus-
ality is in us, and by establishing this principle in its source and
applying it with a sane reason, we can rise from the personality
of the self, which is a relative and particular cause effecting bodily
movement, to the personality of God, which is the absolute and

1 CEuvres inedites, Vol. Ill, p. 517.
*Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 517.
*Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 520.
*Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 521.
6 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 525.
«£, Vol. Ill, p. 531.

8o MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

universal cause of the order of the world and of his own exis-
tence." * Religion, for Maine de Biran, depends upon morality
for its content in the sense that while morality is independent of
religion, the latter " presupposes a moral sentiment or relation
of sympathy and love between sentient feeble beings and the
supreme cause on which they depend for their modifications and
even for their existence." 2

A review of the main facts of this section shows clearly that
the idea of will is involved throughout the philosophy of religion,
and thus invalidates a complete separation between Biran' s
second and third periods. The life of activity is a necessary means
to the religious life. The proof for the existence of God is based
directly on will. The personality of God is thought after the
analogy of the personality of the self. And finally in the last
quotation, the third, or religious, form of life is explicitly made
dependent upon morality. The element of mysticism which does
appear in Biran's latter writings is not made a leading principle
of explanation. It is, however, an important supplement to the
idea of activity in the account of social and religious phenomena.

1 Op. dt., Vol. Ill, p. 52.
d.t Vol. Ill, p. 48.

SECTION XIV.

BIRAN'S RELATION TO SUBSEQUENT THINKERS : COUSIN, COMTE,
RENOUVIER, AND FOUILLEE.

In conclusion it seems fitting to consider very briefly the place
that Biran holds in the subsequent philosophy of his country.
It would, however, be impossible within the present limits to
make an exhaustive study of his influence upon later writers.
Consequently this section will be devoted to a consideration of
his relation to a few of the typical leaders of thought during the
last century. And in this way a general view of his historical
position may be gained.

Maine de Biran is more closely related to Cousin than to any
other subsequent philosopher. Biran's wrork, however, is only
one of the many sources from which the head of the eclectic
philosophy drew in constructing his system. And in this, as in
other instances, Cousin did not borrow uncritically from an earlier
thinker ; but aimed to found his work upon observation of facts
and induction. We are very fortunate in regard to our knowl-
edge of the relation between Biran and Cousin. The latter has
left us a very careful criticism of Biran's doctrine of the direct
perception of the self through experiences of will or effort.
Cousin's criticism is all the more valuable because there is no
circumstance which could have induced him to accentuate the
differences between his own position and that of Biran. Not
only were the philosophers compatriots, but the finest personal
relation subsisted between the elder and the younger man.
Further, the strenuous advocacy of the freedom of the will would
tend to draw them closer together. Finally, Cousin was the first:
to edit the works of Biran and thus to introduce him to the philo-
sophical world. The consideration of these facts lends a peculiar
interest to the criticism.

Cousin finds that Biran was right in emphasizing personality
and in showing the identity between will and attention. More-
Si

82 MAINE DE BIRAN's PHILOSOPHY

0

over, the account of the origin of the idea of causality is correct.
But Biran was wrong in attempting to identify the will with per-
sonality. The greatest error, however, was in neglecting the dis-
tinction between the idea of causality and the principle of causal-
ity. The former is developed in experience, while the latter is a
truth to which reason is naturally subject.

Cousin's estimate of Biran's theory of will is most carefully
worked out in connection with an examination of Locke's idea of
power. In this connection Cousin shows the intimate relation
between Locke and Biran. As the empirical character of Biran's
philosophy has been one of the main theses which we have tried
to present, we have a double reason for looking at Cousin's work :
first, because it substantiates our general position, and secondly,
because it shows the exact relation between Biran and eclecticism.
Cousin's view of Biran's philosophy of will as well as his state-
ment of its defects is brought out clearly in the following quota-
tions : " The distinguishing merit of M. de Biran is in having
•established that the will is the constituent characteristic of our
personality. He has gone farther — too far, perhaps. As Locke
confounded consciousness and memory with personality and iden-
tity of self, M. de Biran has gone even so far as to confound the
will with personality itself. It is certainly the eminent character-
istic of it, so that the idea of cause, which is given in the con-
sciousness of the productive will, is for that reason given in the
consciousness of our personality." l

" In short, this cause, which is ourselves, is implied in every
fact of consciousness. The necessary condition of every phenom-
enon perceived by consciousness is that we pay attention to it.
If we do not bestow our attention, the phenomenon may perhaps
still exist, but the consciousness not connecting itself with it, and
not taking knowledge of it, it is for us a non-existence. Atten-
tion then is the condition of every appreciation of consciousness.
Now attention, as I have more than once shown, is the will. The
condition, then, of every phenomenon of consciousness, and of
course of the first phenomenon, as of all others, is the will, and
as the will is the causative power, it follows that in the first fact

1 Elements of Psychology (trans. 4th ed. by C. S. Henry), p. 183.

BIRAN'S RELATION TO SUBSEQUENT THINKERS 83

"V

of consciousness, and in order that this fact may take place, there
must necessarily be the apperception of our own causality in the
will, from whence it follows again that the idea of cause is the
primary idea ; that the apperception of the voluntary cause which
we ourselves are is the first of all apperceptions, and the condition
of all others.

" Such is the theory to which M. de Biran has raised that of
Locke. I adopt it. I believe that it perfectly accounts for the
idea of cause. But it remains to inquire whether the idea of
cause . . . suffices ... to explain the principle of causality.
For Locke, who treats of the idea of cause, but never of the prin-
ciple of causality, the problem did not even exist. M. de Biran,
who scarcely proposes it, resolves it by far too rapidly, and arrives
at once at a result, the only one permitted by Locke's theory and
by his own, but which sound psychology and sound logic cannot
accept.

" According to M. de Biran, after we have derived the idea
of cause from the sentiment of our own personal activity, in the
phenomenon of effort, of which we are conscious, we transfer
this idea outwardly; we project it into the external world, by virtue
of an operation which, with Royer-Collard, he has called natural
induction." ! But this view is unsatisfactory, because " The pe-
culiar character of induction ... is ... in the contrast of the
identity of the phenomenon or of the law, and of the diversity
of the circumstances from which it is first derived and then trans-
ferred. If, then, the knowledge of external causes is only an
induction from our personal cause, it is in strictness our causal-
ity, the voluntary and free cause which ourselves constitute, that
should be transferred by induction into the external world. . . .
From whence it follows that it is our own causality we should
be obliged to suppose wherever a phenomenon begins to appear :
that is to say, all the causes which we subsequently conceive are
and can be nothing but our own personality." 2

This thought is developed still further to show the insuffi-
ciency of Biran's treatment of the principle of causality. " The

1 Op. cit., pp. 183-184.
*Ibid., pp. 185-186.

84 MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

belief in the external world and in external causes is universal
and necessary ; and the fact which explains it ought itself to be
universal and necessary ; if therefore our belief in the world and
in external causes resolves itself into the assimilation of these
causes to ours, this assimilation ought likewise to be universal
and necessary. Now at this point I have recourse to psychol-
ogy. . . . We all have a perfect conviction that the world ex-
ists, that there are external causes. These causes we believe to
be neither personal, nor intentional, nor voluntary. . . . But if
this belief is universal and necessary, the judgment which in-
cludes it and gives it ought to have a principle which is itself
universal and necessary : and this principle is nothing else than
the principle of causality. . . . Take away the principle of caus-
ality, and whenever a phenomenon appeared upon the theater of
consciousness, of which we were not the cause, there would no
longer be a ground for our demanding a cause for the phenome-
non. . . . But on the contrary, assume the principle of causality
(as potentially existing in the mind), and as soon as the
phenomenon of sensation begins to appear on the theater of con-
sciousness, at the same instant the principle of causality (actu-
ally unfolded and put in exercise by the occasion of the phe-
nomenon), marks it with this character that it cannot but have
a cause. Now as consciousness attests that this cause is not
ourselves, and yet it remains not less certain that it must have a
cause, it follows that there is a cause other than ourselves, and
which is neither personal nor voluntary, and yet it is a cause,
that is to say, a cause simply efficient." '

Cousin finds a certain partial truth in Biran's account of will
but regards that account as inadequate. He says : "I admit, I
am decidedly of the opinion that the consciousness of our own
proper causality precedes any conception of the principle of
causality, and of course precedes any application of that princi-
ple, any knowledge of external causality." 2 Genetically the
knowledge of causality is discovered by an act of will. But the
principle of causality is made logically prior to the particular

1 Of. dt., pp. 187-189.

2 Ibid., p. 190.

BIRAN'S RELATION TO SUBSEQUENT THINKERS 85

example of the principle in voluntary activity. Cousin works
out the distinction as follows : " The process by which in the
depths of the mind the passage is made from the primary fact of
consciousness to the ulterior fact of the conception of the prin-
ciple is this. I wish to move my arm and I move it. ... This
fact, when analyzed, gives three elements : ( I ) Consciousness of a
volition which is my own, which is personal ; (2) a motion pro-
duced ; (3) and finally, a reference of this motion to my will
... a relation of production, of causation ; a relation too, which
I no more call in question, than I do either of the other two
terms, and without which the other two terms are not given ; so
that the three terms are given in one single and indivisible fact,
which fact is the consciousness of my personal causality. . . .

" This fact . . . is characterized by being particular, individual,
determinate. . . . Again, it is characteristic of everything par-
ticular and determinate, to be susceptible of the degrees of more
or less. I myself, a voluntary cause, have at such a moment
more or less energy, which makes the motion produced by me
have more or less force. But does the feeblest motion pertain
any less to me than the most energetic ? Is there between the
the cause, myself, and the effect, motion, a less relation in the
one case than in the other ? Not at all, the two terms may
vary, and do vary perpetually in intensity, but the relation does
not vary. Still further, the two terms . . . may even not exist
at all. . . . But the relation between these two determinate, vari-
able, and contingent terms, is neither variable nor contingent. It is
universal and necessary. The moment the consciousness seizes
these two terms, the reason seizes their relation, and by an im-
mediate abstraction which needs not the support of a great num-
ber of similar facts, it disengages the invariable and necessary
element of the fact from its variable and contingent elements.
. . . Reason, then, is subject to this truth, it is under an impos-
sibility of not supposing a cause, whenever the senses or the
consciousness reveal any motion or phenomenon. Now this im-
possibility, to which the reason is subjected, of not supposing a
cause for every phenomenon, ... is what we call the principle
of causality. . . . Now it is with the principle of causality as

86 MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

with other principles ; never would the human mind have con-
ceived it in its universality and necessity, if at first there had not
been given us a particular fact of causation ; and this primitive
and particular fact is that of our own proper and personal caus-
ality, manifested to the consciousness in an effort, in a voluntary'
act. But this does not suffice of itself wholly to explain the
knowledge of external causes, because we should have to regard
external causes as only an induction from our own causality."

The extended quotations already given and the importance of
the subject alike require that we should look at the passage in
which Cousin sums up his criticism of Biran. It is as follows :
" Gifted with extraordinary psychological insight, M. de Biran
penetrated so far into the intimacy of the fact of consciousness
by which the first idea of cause is given, that he scarcely disen-
gaged himself from that fact and that idea, and neglected too
much the principle of causality ; thus confounding, as Locke
has done, the antecedent of a principle with the principle itself ;
or when he attempted to explain the principle of causality, he
explained it by a natural induction which transfers to the external
world consciousness, the will and all the peculiar attributes of
his model ; confounding in this way a particular, transient, and
erroneous application of the principle of causality, with the prin-
ciple in itself. . . . The theory of M. de Biran is the develop-
ment of the theory of Locke. It reproduces that theory with
more extent and profoundness, and exhausts at once both its
merits and its defects." *

While the question of the relation of Cousin to Biran is logic-
ally distinct from the question concerning Cousin's estimate of
his debt to his predecessor, I believe they are practically coinci-
dent. If this is correct, in the view that the idea of causality
becomes explicit in the fact of volition, that is, that it is genetic-
ally (though not logically) derived from the act of will, we have
the important thought which Cousin accepted from Biran's theory
of will. Taking causality as a typical example, it may be said
that while Biran derives the intellectual categories from a psy-

1 Op. cit., pp. 190-194.

2 Ibid., p. 197.

BIRAN'S RELATION TO SUBSEQUENT THINKERS 87

chological fact, Cousin makes them universal laws of reason. A
general view of Cousin's treatment of causality suggests the con-
clusion that Biran's influence on early eclecticism has been over-
emphasized.

Passing from the system which stands in closest relation to
Biran's work to that which is most antithetical, positivism, we
can dismiss our subject much more briefly. We have here no
extended criticism for examination, and need only note the
divergence in method and in •general attitude to philosophical
questions. We have, then, not so much to trace a relation as to
show the absence of any intimate relation between Biran and
Comte. Biran, we have seen, was individualistic in attitude and
pursued a psychological method. Comte, on the other hand,
was socialistic in attitude and employed a method which was de-
rived from and suited to include the other sciences, but which left
no place for psychology in Biran's sense of that term. It is un-
necessary to carry the comparison further. The contrasted posi-
tions will be shown by a notice of Comte's views on some ques-
tions which we have seen were important for Biran.

With Comte any attempt to seek for a metaphysical basis from
which the postulates of the various sciences could be deduced
marked a return to a more primitive method of thought. He
could consequently have no sympathy with a system like that of
Biran which was founded on an ultimate fact discovered in ex-
perience. For positivism science is its own end ; and any law
of the relation of the sciences must be discovered in the history
of scientific development rather than in some isolated fact.
Starting with this view of " the powerlessness of metaphysical
methods for the study of moral and intellectual phenomena,"
Comte notes the general "absurdity of the supposition of a man
seeing himself think." He then finds further difficulties in the
method of " interior observation." " It is at once evident that no
function can be studied but with relation to the organ that ful-
fils it, or to the phenomena of its fulfilment : and in the second
place, that the affective functions, and yet more the intellectual,
exhibit in the latter respect this particular characteristic — that
they cannot be observed during their operation, but only in their

88 MAINE DE BIRAN'S PHILOSOPHY

results, more or less immediate and more or less durable." The
psychological method does not study the organic conditions nor
the intellectual acts, and thus by neglecting " both the agent and
the act," it is lost in " an unintelligible conflict of words, in which
merely nominal entities are substituted for real phenomena."
We have seen that Biran also often speaks against the substitu-
tion of abstractions for realities, and it is necessary to see clearly
what is meant. Biran's ultimate reality, the self discovered in
effort, is for Comte merely a " nominal entity," while agent is
made equivalent to "organic condition."

Comte objects further to the " radical separation which it was
thought necessary to make between brutes and man " and " the
necessity that the metaphysicians found themselves under, of
preserving the unity of what they call the I, that it might corre-
spond with the unity of the soul." For "it is probable that
among the superior animals the sense of personality is still more
marked than in man, on account of their more isolated life." *

It might seem to the casual observer that there is one resem-
blance between the systems, in the fact that positivism makes the
affective, prior to the intellectual, life. But even this point of
similarity is not valid, because Biran sharply distinguishes will
and desire. We may say then that Biran had no influence on
positivism.

Having considered Maine de Biran's relation to eclecticism
and to positivism, we shall conclude by noting the estimate in
which he is held by contemporary writers. First, let us see how
he fits into Renouvier's historical scheme. The neo-critic thinks
that both eclecticism and positivism were inadaquate reactions
against the philosophy of the eighteenth century. The former
sought to rediscover the " lofty philosophical traditions " of the
seventeenth century, the latter aimed at their " total abandonment
confident of replacing them by a more certain method." But
neither was alive to " the necessity of studying the nature of the
principles of knowledge."2

Biran was a true child of his time. Although he passed with

1 Martineau, Comte' s Positive Philosophy, Vol. I, pp. 331, 334.

2 Histoire et solution des problemes metaphysiques, pp. 415-417.

BIRAN'S RELATION TO SUBSEQUENT THINKERS 89

the eclectics as the discoverer of Leibnitz, he really emphasized
only the principle of activity, while he did not even understand
the doctrine of p reestablished harmony.1 Still retaining his
realistic position, he made the will a force of our own " of which
we have at the same time thought and external perception with
the certitude of its action, as a cause producing organic move-
ment." ~

It is easy to see how slight Biran's influence has been on neo-
criticism. Both Biran and Renouvier are strenuous advocates
of free will. But for the former it is a fact given in experience,
which we cannot doubt any more than we can doubt the existence
of the self. Renouvier, on the other hand, " rests the thesis of
free will, not with the eclectics on the vain affirmation of an inner
experience which we have of it, a confusion between the real
experience of our feeling on this point and the experience which
it is necessary we should have and which we never do have of the
relation of this feeling with the truth," but on a psychological
analysis of the act of deliberation, on the evident fallacy in
employing the principle of contradiction to prove that all future
events are determined, and on a study of the concept of cause.3
We are forced to conclude that Biran had very little direct
influence on the work of Renouvier.

We will consider one more estimate of Biran, made by another
contemporary writer on will philosophy. Fouillee speaks of Biran
as the one who reestablished dynamism in man and nature "but
under the doubtful form of motor force " and who " had only a
very mystical idea " of " the sphere of ideal freedom." He says :
" much of French philosophy agrees with Maine de Biran and
with German philosophy in supposing that beyond logical mech-
anism and sensible reality there is a region of freedom which is
at the same time a region of love understood in the true sense." 4

It is clear, however, that Fouillee does not accept the theory
of a " true motor force," as Biran employed the term, for he
criticises an error of the "partisans of the objectivity of the self."
1 Cf. op. dt., p. 414.

*Ibid., pp. 456-457.

a Cf. ibid, pp. 437-438.

4 La liberte et le determinisme, p. 341.

gO MAINE DE BIRAN S PHILOSOPHY

They confuse the two meanings of the "idea of the self" which
can stand for either "the reflective idea of the self" which "is
only a distinct manifestation of our thought, and contrasted with
our existence " or " the immediate consciousness of being, of sen-
sation, and of thought." l Fouillee finds that " the most that can
be accorded to man, is simply a vague consciousness of force or
universal will which acts in us as in others, this pretended con-
sciousness of the universal is without doubt only a pure idea."
" If we thus have consciousness of any freedom, it is not of our
individual freedom, but of freedom of absolute unity superior to
our own individuality. In this case I am free precisely where I
am no longer self. While as a self, as a being distinct and deter-
minate, I am determined both in my action and in my existence,
I am caught in the net of universal determinism."

When we compare this quotation with Biran's idea of freedom,
we cannot claim that Fouillee with his doctrine of the " force of
the idea of freedom " as a means of reconciliation between liberty
and determinism, really owes any considerable debt to the earlier
philosopher.

1 Op. at., p. 77.

2 Ibid., pp. 90-91.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.
WORKS OF MAINE DE BIRAN.

Nouvelle considerations sur les rapports du physique et du morale de
I' homme, 1834. CEuvres philosophiques, 1841. Publiees par. V.
COUSIN.
Pcnsees, 1857, 3d ed., 1877. CEuvres inedites, 3 vols., 1859.* Publiees

• par E. NAVILLE.

Nouvelles ceuvres inedites, 1887.* Lettres inedites de Maine de Biran a
Andre-Marie Ampere in the Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale
for 1893. Publiees par A. BERTRAND.

Opinion de M. Maine de Biran, Depute de la Dordogne sur la
proposition de M. de Serre, in the Moniteur of February 14, 1818.

WORKS CONCERNING MAINE DE BIRAN.

J. Simon. Maine de Biran, in the Revue des deux mondes, Nov., 1841.
C. A. Sainte-Beuve. Maine de Biran, in Causeries du lundi, Vol. XIII,

304-323. 1857.

A. Nicolas. Etude sur Maine de Biran, 1858.
Henri Baudrillart. Maine de Biran ih Publicistes modernes, pp. 175-189,

1863.

0. Merten. Etude critique sur Maine de Biran, 1865.
Elie de Biran. Etude sur les ceuvres philosophiques de Maine de Biran,

1868.*
Ad. Franck. Maine de Biran, in Moralistes et philosophes, pp. 273-289,

2d ed., 1874.

Gerard. La philosophie de Maine de Biran, 1876.*
Paul Janet. Un philosophe spiritualiste au XIXe siecle in Les mattres de la

pensee moderne, 1883.

Ferraz. Maine de Biran in Spiritualisme et liberalisme, 2d ed. , 1887.
H. Taine. Maine de Biran in Les philosophes classiques du XIXe siecle en

France, pp. 48-78, 6th ed., 1888.

Picavet. Philosophie de Biran de ran IX a V 'an XI. (Orleans), 1888.*
Caro. Histoire d'une ante sincere in Melanges et portraits, 1888.
A. Bertrand. La psychologic de V effort, 1889.*
L. G. Konig. Der fransosische Kant in Philosophise he Monatshefte, Vol.

XXV, 1889.

1 In the third volume Debrit gives a valuable catalogue of Biran' s writings.
The works marked with asterisk (*), I have, unfortunately, not had an oppor-
tunity to consult.

91

92 MAINE DE BIRAN*S PHILOSOPHY

C. Favre. Essai sur Maine de Biran' 1889.

E. Rostan. La religion de Maine de Biran, 1890.*
L. Marillier. Maine de Biran, 1893.*

A. Lang. Maine de Biran und die neuere Philosophie, 1901.
A. Ku htm arm. Maine de Biran, 1901.

COMPARE ALSO THE FOLLOWING :

Damiron. Essai sur r histoire de la philosophic en France au XIXe siecle,
3d ed., 1834.

F. Ravaisson. Philosophie contemporaine in Revue des deux mondes

November, 1840.

F. Ravaisson. La philosophie en France au XIXe siecle, 1867, 3d ed.,

1889.

A. Lemoine. I' A me et le corps, 1852.*
Paul Janet. Le spiritiialisme francais au XIXe siecle in Revue des deux

mondes, May, 1868.

C. Adam. La philosophie en France {premiere moitie du XIXe siecle), 1894.
Levy-Bruhl. History of Modern Philosophy in France, 1899.

THE FOLLOWING AUTHORS HAVE ALSO BEEN REFERRED TO IN THIS
MONOGRAPH.

Beaulavon. Article Sensualisme in La grande encyclopedic .

Condillac. Traite des sensations (Ch. Houel, Paris, 1798).

V. Cousin. History of Modern Philosophy (trans, by O. W. Wight).

V. Cousin. Elements of Psychology (trans, by C. S. Henry).

Fouillee. La liberte et le determinisme ,

Hamilton. Lectures.

Hume. Treatise of Human Nature (Selby-Bigge).

Hume. Enquiries (Selby-Bigge).

Kant. Critique of Pure Reason (trans, by Max Miiller).

Locke. Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

Martineau. Compte 's Positive Philosophy.

Reid. Collected Writings (8th ed. by Hamilton, 1880).

Renouvier. Histoire et solution des problemes Metaphysiques.

Seth. Scottish Philosophy.

G. Tarde. Inter-psychology in International Quarterly, Vol. VII, No. i.

INDEX.

Ancillon, 15, n.
Beaulavon, 6
Bertrand, 26

Cabanis, 3, 12

Causality, 18, 25, 29, 30, 32-35, 38, 39,
44, 49, 53, 55, 57, 61, 66, 67, 79,
80, 82-86

efficient and physical, 67
psychical, 35
Comte, 87
Condillac, 3, 4, 6, 14, 15, 28, 29, 39,

60, 68, 71

definition of will, 10

statute 9, 10, 69, 70

Cousin, i, 6, 37, 81-87

Deduction, 65, 66
Descartes, 18, 28, 29, 73
Desire, 9, 10, 14, 17, 34
and will, 36, 88

Emotions, 72-73

classification of, 49

Favre, 3
Fouillee, 89-90

Freedom, 3, 8, 36, 37, 67, 73, 79, 81,
89, 90

Gerando, 15, n.

God's existence, proof of, 79-80

Habituation, 34, 47, 48, 52, 53, 62

Hamilton, 38-39

Human vs. merely sentient life, 40-42,

44, 46, 88
Hume, 18, 21, 33, 34, 35, 62, 63

Idealogy, 12

Ideas of reflection vs. logical abstractions,

37-38, 56-57, 62-65, 77
Imitation, not the principle of art, 76
Induction, 62, 83

Kant, i, 15, 18
Kb'nig, 17
Kiihtmaun, 15, n., 39

Lang, 35

Language, 61, 62, 64, 65
Laromiguiere, 2
Leibnitz, 2, 28
Levy Bruhl, 17
Localization in space, 55
Locke, 6-9, n, 14, 18, 36, 38, 39, 48,
60, 71, 82, 83, 86

Max Miiller, 16, n.

Memory, 45, 48, 49, 56, 61, 62, 66, 70,

82

Merten, 4
Movement, 26, 34, 50, 60, 70, 85

classification of, 25
Mysticism, 6, 79-80, 89

Napoleon, Biran's relation to, I
Waville, 2, 5, 18, 78
Picavet, 6

Pleasantnessjand'unpleasantness, 9, 14,
17, 41, 69^ 87, 88

sesthetical significance of, 75, 77

cause of, 44

ethical import of, 73, 74

no memory of, 61
Reason, 62-68, 85
Reid, 1 8-2 1
Renouvier, 88-89
Royer-Collard, 83

Sciences, 32, 37, 38, 46, 62, 66, 67, 87
Seth, 1 8

Skepticism, 6, 18, 21, 35
Stewart, 18
Stoicism, idea of world soul in, 54

value of, 78, 79
Taine, 57, n.
Tarde, 5
Time, 16, 36
Touch, sense of, 14, 32, 45, 52, 55, 56,

7«, 75

in Condillac' s system, 10, n, 70
de Tracy, 12

93

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